Grain size and the origin of wave constructed beach ridges. A discussion of 'Beach ridges and prograded beach deposits as palaeoenvironment records'

Tamura (2012) has provided a comprehensive review (except for the role of tectonics) of the origin of beach ridges globally. As highlighted in the review, beach ridges can develop by a variety of processes depending upon the location and the prevailing climatic and oceanographic conditions. One of the types of beach ridges, the medium to coarse-grained sand beach ridges along the northeast Australian coast, has been suggested by Nott et al. (2009) to be deposited by waves and surge during tropical cyclones and as such register a millennial scale record of these events. Tamura (2012) suggests that they could have been deposited by wind, presumably because they are composed of sand and not gravel, however the evidence as discussed here shows that Tamura (2012) is incorrect