Coastal plain evolution in southern Hainan Island, China

The coast of southern Hainan Island is characterized by wide sandy embayments, which consist of ( i) drowned valleys bounded by steep bedrock hills and only locally receiving sediments, and embayments of various dimensions covered either by (ii) alluvial-deltaic deposits or by (iii) sands of coastal beach ridges/barriers and associated elongated lagoons. During the late Tertiary-Pleistocene the area has experienced isostatic and eustatic movements associated with neotectonics and climatic changes. Such history isrecorded in terraces at various altitudes (SO, 40, 20 m asl) and sequences of coastal sand ridges/baymouth bars. The Holocene variations in sea level and climate are recorded in the dated coastal ridges, coral reef and beachrock. Conditions suitable for reef development started about 8000 a BP. The GPR profiles also show that the internal structures of the sand ridges have composite nature being formed by several superimposed secondary ridges.