Editorial: Advances in Sedimentology and Coastal and Marine Geology

The Special Issue "Advance in Sedimentology and Coastal and Marine Geology" has collected significant research articles advancing the state-of-the-art of the corresponding sub-disciplines. Beach rocks, hybrid event beds and Quaternary marine sedimentation and shallow gas represent important topics of this Special Issue. Different areas have been studied, including both Mediterranean and extra-Mediterranean areas. In the Mediterranean areas, the Bay of Naples and the Cilento offshore (Southern Tyrrhenian Sea, Italy) have been studied, and the Red Sea (Saudi Arabia). The Bay of Naples displays the physiographic domains of the Somma-Vesuvius volcanic complex, the Campi Flegrei volcanic complex, the Ischia and Capri islands, and the Sorrento Peninsula. Beach rocks, which are the subject of two papers of this Special Issue, are car-bonate-cemented sandstones, individuating on the shoreline of tropical and warm temperate beaches. Beach rocks represent good potential indicator of sea-level position. Their location within the intertidal zone make beach rocks potentially good indicator of former sea level, particularly, if the tidal range is small. The most of beach rocks are found in low latitude locations, although there are particularly extensive outcrops around the Mediterranean Sea. In the studied areas, beach rocks mainly consist of calcareous biogenic remains (Red Sea, Arabian Gulf),or alternatively, they consist of siliciclastic grains in near the tectonically active areas (Gulf of Aqaba). Hybrid event beds are the deposits of such flows which do not resemble traditional end-member sediment gravity flow facies (debris flows or turbidites), as they result from a combination of turbulent, transitional and laminar transportation mechanisms, all as part of the same event. Hybrid event beds include transitional flow deposits, slurry beds and matrix-rich sandstones. Hybrid event beds comprise up to five (H1-H5) vertically-stacked divisions, including a basal matrix-poor turbidite sandstone (H1), overlain by a banded sandstone (H2) with alternating matrix-rich and matrix-poor bands; this gives way to a matrix-rich sandstone (H3) which constitutes the 'linked debrite'. The matrix-rich sandstone of H3, typically contains mudstone clasts, mud chips, dispersed clay matrix, mica flakes, sand injections, pseudo nodules and organic matter. A couple of thin, well-structured sandstone/siltstone (H4) and a mudstone (H5) complete the typical sequence of hybrid event beds.