SOURCELAND CONTROLS AND DISPERSAL PATHWAYS OF SEDIMENT GENERATION AND MANAGEMENT

The study of some selected key geological areas around the world, allows to investigate the effects of source rock lithology, transport, depositional environment, and sampling scale on sand composition of complex systems. This provides insights regarding petrofacies models that represent a useful tool to evaluate the sediment generation and management. The contribution of multiple source rocks, belonging to the same mountain headwaters, on sand populations is largely dependent on intensity and duration of weathering that may act with a different efficiency on different rock types, and relief. The effects of climate, relief and transport, within the drainage basins, ultimately influence sand composition of marine environments. In fact, high‐energy beach environments extremely modify initial composition and texture of sand, resulting in increased homogenization of fluvial sand. Thussand provided to the shoreline, by large rivers and their deltas, is already homogenized. Coastal borderland of Calabria, southern Spain, northern Morocco and the California and their mainlands, provide an exceptional opportunity for a detailed examination of the effects of source lithology, transport, deposition and sampling scale on composition of modern sand, constituting an ideal natural laboratory for this study.