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6.3.2.7 Offshore Bar (Barrier Island)

Offshore bars (barrier bars or barrier islands) are deposits of sand, gravel, and pebbles which are completely detached from the land. Some barrier islands exhibit features suggesting that former spits were separated from the land by violent storms. Other barrier islands may have formed when a rising sea level caused the spit to become isolated. Still other deposits reveal that barrier islands are caused by wave action which erodes material from the sea floor and heaps the sand, gravel, and pebbles into ridges just above sea level.


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Offshore bar
Offshore bar
Original picture from the Ward Collection
Barrier Island Morphology  A Barrier Island  Features of a Shore-Zone Environment  Coastal Depositional Features  Coastal Depositional Features  Coastal features  Offshore bar  A wind blown sand spit. 

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