Aninlet is a (usually long and narrow) indentation of ashoreline, such as a smallarm,cove,bay,sound,fjord,lagoon ormarsh,[1] that leads to an enclosed largerbody of water such as alake,estuary,gulf ormarginal sea.
Inmarine geography, the term "inlet" usually refers to either the actualchannel between anenclosed bay and theopen ocean and is often called an "entrance", or a significant recession in the shore of a sea, lake or large river. A certain kind of inlet created by pastglaciation is afjord, typically but not always in mountainous coastlines and also inmontane lakes.
Multi-arm complexes of large inlets orfjords may be calledsounds, e.g., Puget Sound,Howe Sound,Karmsund (sund isScandinavian for "sound"). Some fjord-type inlets are calledcanals, e.g., Portland Canal,Lynn Canal,Hood Canal, and some are channels, e.g., Dean Channel andDouglas Channel.
Tidal amplitude, wave intensity, and wave direction are all factors that influence sediment flux in inlets.[2]
On low slope sandy coastlines, inlets often separatebarrier islands and can form as the result ofstorm events.[3]Alongshore sediment transport can cause inlets to close if the action oftidal currents flowing through an inlet do not flush accumulated sediment out of the inlet.[4]
