Contributions to the knowledge of Mochima National Park: preliminary sedimentological study of Cautarito and Manare coves

Abstract

The Mochima National Park is located between Barcelona and Cumaná, it extends along the coast for an area of 94,935 hectares, constituted by a group of islands, peninsula, reefs and inlets with crescent beaches, of great tourist and ecogeographic importance. The present research, framed in the sedimentological studies, tries to contribute from this area of knowledge, information about the granulometry of Cautarito (located to the east of Manare) and Manare (located to the north of the peninsula) coves, as an indicator of the quality of the beaches.  The research was conducted in three phases: (a) Field, with the purpose of collecting samples of surface sediments in the beach profile; (b) laboratory, with the purpose of determining the texture of the sediments (dry sieve method), the shape of the grains (morphoscopy) and the content of CaCO3 (carbonate digestion method). The Cautarito cove is fundamentally made up of medium sized sands, moderately selected, with negative asymmetry, leptocurtic, subangular and with a CaCO3 content that varies between 10% and 28%; while in Manare, the sediments tend towards the thick, well selected sands, with negative asymmetry, leptocurtic, subangular and with a CaCO3 fraction between 10% and 36%. The analysis of variance reveals that there are no significant differences between the material that constitutes these coves.