The growing economic interest shown in the shallower regions of the continental shelf explains the present need to know moree about the contribution processes of the various sedimentary deposits. Mesurement of tidal currents and theoretical studies on the effect of waves in a number of sectors have provided an estimate ( table 1) of maximum probable sediment transport values (Bonneville. Sternberg). These are quite high, and range from 27.7 to 0.65 kg/m/s. It is clear that small differences in maximum current velocity give rise to large differences in the mass transport value. [NOT CONTROLLED OCR]