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Chronology of Inland Shell Deposits on the Southern Coast of Sri Lanka

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Jinadasa Katupotha  and
N.P. Wijayananda
Jinadasa Katupotha
Affiliation:
Department of Geography, University of Sri Jayewardenepura, Gangodawila, Nugegoda, Sri Lanka
N.P. Wijayananda
Affiliation:
Oceanographic Unit, National Aquatic Resources Agency, Crow Island, Mattakkuliya, Colombo 15, Sri Lanka
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Abstract

Extensive patches of fossil shell deposits are found in many places along the rims of emerged coastal embayments and lagoon floors on the southern coast of Sri Lanka. Compositional and depositional sequences of fossil shells (Veneridae, Cerithidae, and Nassaridae) reveal that the bulk of the valves has been accumulated by three processes: (a) the shells have been piled up on the rims of emerged coastal embayments mainly by wave action; (b) following coastal progradation since the late Subboreal the shells possibly gathered on lagoon floors; and (c) the valves on the coastal hilly areas and dune areas were discarded by early human inhabitants in the course of their daily activities. Radiocarbon dates of fossil corals along the southwest and south coasts support this interpretation and indicate that mean sea level was at least 1 m higher than present in the middle Holocene. The fossil species may have lived in an intertidal zone of embayments and lagoons that extended 3 km or more inland form the present shore in the middle Holocene.

Type
Research Article
Information
Quaternary Research , Volume 32 , Issue 2 , September 1989 , pp. 222 - 228
Copyright
University of Washington

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