Characteristics of the Quequén Salado Estuary, Buenos Aires, Argentina

MARINI, M FABIAN; PICCOLO, M CINTIA; PERILLO, GERARDO M. E.

Bahia Blanca

Congreso; 4th LOICZ Open Science Meeting,; 1999

LOICZ

The Quequén Salado river is located in the south-west of the Buenos Aires Province, Argentina.The river basin is situated in a very important farming zone of the Argentine country. In the areaaround its mouth the river has developed an important estuary with relevant changes ingeomorphology. The objective of the present work is to describe the main characteristics of thisestuary. Water temperature, salinity and currents were measured along the estuary in severalsurveys. Various cross sections were performed obtaining different oceanographic variables tounderstand the characteristic circulation of the study zone. Meteorological parameters wereobtained from a station located in Marisol, a resort town located on side of the estuary. The resultsof the series of surveys made along the estuary and the surrounding coast show that the rivermargins are mostly erosive down to the last 5 km of the estuary where depositional features aredominant.The tides are microtidal, with a mean range of 1 m. The estuary is shallow having 2 meters depthat its mouth and 1.6 m near the zone of the limit of the tidal influence. The water column is wellmixed with temperatures gradients of 0.75ºC/m. Typical salinity gradients in the water column are5 m/1. Current velocities vary between 7 cm/s to 18.3 cm/s.