Sharm Coasts

Excerpt

A sharm coast is a type of irregular but mostly broad embayment with a limited extension inland, which can be found along the coast of the Red Sea; best developed in the southern part of the Sinai peninsula (Sharm el Sheikh) or in the middle part of the Saudi Arabian coastline (Schmidt, 1923; Bird, 2000). The sharms do interrupt broader coral-reef belts, but may be decorated with small reef benches. Mostly the inner parts of the sharms show beaches (often with beachrock) at the end of dry valleys (wadis), but at some places sharms exist without a connection to valley-like forms inland. There are several interpretations for the formation of the sharm embayments, and most probably several of them together are responsible: the lack or interruption of coral reefs maybe explained by sediment discharge and suspension at the mouth of the wadis, or by too much freshwater impact (possibly in the form of groundwater seepage). Other explanations include cutting of a former reef body by fluvial erosion during sea-level lowstands in glacial times, or overdeepening of the seabed in front of valley mouths where coral reef growth could not keep up with the rising sea-level in postglacial times. Some of the sharms are simply ria-like forms, that is, drowned lower parts of former valleys; others may be formed by slumping or sliding of oversteepened fringing reef bodies or submarine slopes, but no evidence for this process has ever been checked out in the Red Sea. …