Environmental Sedimentary Atlas of the Oceanic Zone of the State of Santa Catarina, Brazil

The state of Santa Catarina has a coastline of 538 km representing approximately 7% of the Brazilian coast. The coastline is subdivided into three sectors: north, central and south (DIEHL & HORN FILHO, 1996). This coastline is very rugged with a high diversity of beach environments, distributed in 36 coastal municipalities, as described on the Coastal Management Plan of Santa Catarina (GERCO, 2010). Sandy beaches are transitional environments and very dynamics, changing constantly through biological, hydraulic and eolic processes, having a considerable ecological and socio-economic importance. In an ecological issue, they are productive ecosystems that sustain diverse communities of organisms, such as micro fauna and macro benthos, and most invertebrate phyla as arthropods, crustaceans, mollusks and echinoderms are represented on the beaches. On a socio-economic point of view, the beaches are important recreational areas, providing the development of the cities, as well construction of resorts, improvement on the tourist activities, trade and industry. Population growth and the increasing occupation of coastal areas and therefore the use of their natural resources, could damage such environments. The understanding of the various agents that affect formation and variability of sandy beaches is extreme important for the effective management of this environments. In this context, the Environmental Sedimentary Atlas of the Oceanic Zone of the State of Santa Catarina, Brazil, is being developed to assist in the lack of information about the coast of Santa Catarina for students, researchers and decision makers. This project aims to raise the knowledge of the textural, morphoscopical and compositional (mineralogy and biota) characteristics of beach sediments, including the collection and analysis of approximately 300 samples of backshore sediments. Specific objectives include the membership of all oceanic beaches using the existing terminology and new names; the collection of superficial samples of sediments of backshore sector; the description of geological, geomorphological, environmental and oceanographic characteristics, and the sectorization of the Santa Catarina’s coast, through the study of sedimentological characteristics observed in fieldwork.