Shoal
A shoal, sandbar (or just bar in context), sandbank or gravelbar is a somewhat linear landform within or extending into a body of water, typically composed of sand, silt or small pebbles. A spit or sandspit is a type of shoal. Shoals are characteristically long and narrow (linear) and develop where a stream or ocean current promotes deposition of granular material, resulting in localized shallowing (shoaling) of the water. Shoals can appear in the sea, in a lake, or in a river. Alternatively a bar may separate a lake from the sea, as in the case of an ayre. They are typically composed of sand, although could be of any granular matter that the moving water has access to and is capable of shifting around (for example, soil, silt, gravel, cobble, shingle, or even boulders). The grain size of the material comprising a bar is related to the size of the waves or the strength of the currents moving the material, but the availability of material to be worked by waves and currents is also important.
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Famous quotes containing the word shoal:
“If it were done when ‘tis done, then ‘twere well
It were done quickly. If th’ assassination
Could trammel up the consequence, and catch
With his surcease success—that but this blow
Might be the be-all and the end-all!—here,
But here, upon this bank and shoal of time,
We’d jump the life to come.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)