Physical Oceanography of the Bahía Blanca Estuary

PERILLO, G.M.E.; PICCOLO, M.C.

The Bahia Blanca Estuary: ecology and biodiversity

Springer

Lugar: Cham; Año: 2021; p. 31 - 49

The Bahía Blanca Estuary has a very complex evolution during the LatePleistocene-Early Holocene (for detailed descriptions, see Chapters 1 and 2). Theestuary today was the northern portion of a very large (over 300 km wide) deltaformed by the combination of the Colorado and Negro Rivers (Melo et al. 2003,2013), but mainly dominated by the former. The formation of the delta correspondsto a significant input of sediments from the Colorado River through several distributariesas well as other rivers that are no longer active. The excess sediment providedduring about 10,000 years generated a delta which its actual extension into the innershelf is today a matter of discussion since there is no clear geomorphologic andsedimentological indication of its outer border within the El Rincón area (Fig. 1.2;Chap. 1). Upon the diminishing discharges of the Colorado River, including thedisappearance of many of its distributaries (Melo 2004), sediment input reducedsensibly, being presently basically negligible.