ISS032-E-16579 Click the photo number to access all resolutions available and the database record.
Strandplains are built by successive additions of beach sand, usually from some nearby source. Currents on this coast of South America (about 5 degrees south of the Equator) come from the south, suggesting that the Chira River delta is the source of the sand. The newest beach is being formed today by the waves—which appear as the thin, ragged white line along the strandplain—supplied by the north-flowing current. The regularity of the spacing of the beaches suggests that some episodic influx of sediment controls beach formation. This influx may be determined by floods coming down the Chira River, possibly driven by the heavy rains of El Nino events, which occur irregularly every few years.
Two other sets of faint parallel lines can be seen on higher ground inland (marked with arrows), with the upper set stretching all the way from the Chira river floodplain. Observed in many places along the coast of Peru, these also may be strandplains generated when the land surface was at a lower elevation. Both also may have been produced by sand from the Chira River. The land surface is known to be rising along this coast with the rise of the Andes Mountains, which explains why the upper shorelines now lie 120 meters above sea level.
