ABSTRACT
The Atlantic coast of North America is one of the world’s most dynamic sedimentary environments. Coastal erosion and deposition are a function of three interrelated factors: amount and kind of sediment within a coastal segment, magnitude of the sediment flux, and stability of sea level. The mechanics of barrier island formation and migration has been a subject of debate in the geoscience literature for many years. Nevertheless, there is indisputable evidence that most of the mid-Atlantic barriers are migrating westward. When viewed from the perspective of geomorphic time, the sedimentary masses called barrier islands may be considered fluid-like in their motion. In the development of the barrier island migration model, it was suggested that the islands could be classified according to the dominance of one of several dynamical states. The importance of threshold-exceeding processes in barrier island dynamics is best characterized by the eddy momentum transport of island migration.
