4.3 Coastal Landscapes

Question 1

What is a concordant coastline?

Answer 1

When one rock type is parallel to the coast therefore there are no headlands and bays.

Question 2

What is a discordant coastline?

Answer 2

When more than one types of rocks are perpendicular to the coastline so headlands and bays are created.

Question 3

Give examples of hard rocks.

Answer 3

Limestone, chalk, granite. They erode slowly.

Question 4

Give examples of soft rock.

Answer 4

Clay, sand, mud. They erode quickly.

Question 5

What are winter waves like?

Answer 5

In winter the waves have high frequency and are steep with short wave lengths.

Question 6

What are summer waves like?

Answer 6

In summer waves have low frequency and are slow sloping and have long wave lengths.

Question 7

What is ‘hydraulic action’?

Answer 7

Air and water is caught in cracks and pressure becomes greater causing the rock to break and crack off.

Question 8

What is ‘abrasion’?

Answer 8

Pebbles and small rocks are smashed and thrown against the rock causing it to become smoother.

Question 9

What is ‘attrition’?

Answer 9

Rocks are thrown around by the waves and bump into each other causing them to become smaller and rounder and smoother.

Question 10

What is a joint?

Answer 10

They are small cracks in the layers of rock created during earth movements.

Question 11

What is a fault?

Answer 11

They are large cracks in the rock caused by earthquake movements.

Question 12

What is an arch?

Answer 12

A passage through a headland which starts off as a cave and gets eroded until it cuts through.

Question 13

What is a stack?

Answer 13

It is a rock left standing out at sea after wave erosion has separated it from the mainland. Also was previously an arch but the ‘arch’ has fallen off.

Question 14

What is a stump?

Answer 14

It is formed by continuous wave action attacking a stack until it collapses. They are a flat rock jutting out of the sea at a low height to the sea.

Question 15

What is a wave cut platform?

Answer 15

A rocky platform found at the foot of an eroding cliff and exposed at low tide. It is a flat ‘platform’ at the base of a cliff where there is a wave cut notch. A cliff is attacked by destructive waves and lots of hydraulic action and corrosion. The power of the waves thrown towards the bottom of the cliff creates a wave-cut notch. This eventually causes he rock above to collapse onto the wave-cut platform. The waves have backwash that drags the small rocks forwards sand backwards on the platform causing it to smoothen out.

Question 16

What is mass-movement?

Answer 16

It is the downhill movement of weathered material under the force of gravity.

Question 17

What is weathering?

Answer 17

It is the break-down of rock by physical or chemical processes.

Question 18

What is prevailing wind?

Answer 18

The direction of which the wind usually blows.

Question 19

What are destructive waves?

Answer 19

They are found on steep beaches and are steeply breaking and mainly responsible for coastal erosion. Their backwash is much stronger than their swash.

Question 20

What are constructive waves?

Answer 20

They are found on low-angled beaches and mainly responsible for coastal deposition. They are gently breaking, with a much stronger swash than backwash.

Question 21

What is longshore drift?

Answer 21

They are waves approaching the coast at an angle resulting in the gradual zig-zag movement of sediment along the coast.

Question 22

What is a spit and what do they look like?

Answer 22

They are a long, narrow build up of sand and rocks formed by longshore drift and deposited where the coastline suddenly changes direction. One end of the spit is connected to the land and the other end out to the sea which usually has a hooked end.

Question 23

What is a bar?

Answer 23

It is where a spit grows across a bay and reach the headland on the other side. A bar can eventually enclose the bay to create a lagoon.

Question 24

What is the rock type on a concordant coastline?

Answer 24

There is one layer of hard rock parallel to the sea and to a layer of soft rock.

Question 25

What features are found on a concordant coastline?

Answer 25

There is either a cliff or a long beach.

Question 26

What is the rock type like on a discordant coast?

Answer 26

There is soft and hard rock parallel to each other perpendicular to the sea.

Question 27

What features are found on a discordant coast?

Answer 27

Headlands and bays.

Question 28

What are headlands?

Answer 28

They are ‘cliffs/rocks’ jutting out of the coast and separate each bay. They are hard rock.

Question 29

What are bays?

Answer 29

They are concave parts in a coastline where the waves are weak and there is usually a beach. They are soft rock.

Question 30

What three factors affect wave energy?

Answer 30

The wind speed, the amount of time the wind blows, or wind duration and the fetch.

Question 31

Where are the biggest waves in the UK?

Answer 31

They are from the West of the uk or Cornwall as they need to travel all the way across the Atlantic so they keep growing.

Question 32

How do rockfalls occur?

Answer 32

Tectonic stresses and erosion make cracks in the cliffs which cause the cliff to become unstable. Also, freeze thaw weathering could happen to it.

Question 33

What is freeze thaw weathering?

Answer 33

Water enters cracks in rocks during the warmer day and freezes during the colder night. As the water turns into ice it expands and exerts pressure on the surrounding rock causing it to break off.

Question 34

What is chemical weathering?

Answer 34

The decomposition of rock caused by a chemical change in the rock like sea water on some cliffs.

Question 35

What is biological weathering?

Answer 35

The breaking of rock by the action of plants and animals with roots and tunnels.

Question 36

What is a solution?

Answer 36

Dissolved particles of rocks or chemicals in the water.

Question 37

What is traction?

Answer 37

Large rocks or pebbles rolled on the sea bed as they are too heavy to lift in any way.

Question 38

What is saltation?

Answer 38

A bouncing motion of particles on the sea bed too heavy to be suspended by the water.

Question 39

What is suspension?

Answer 39

Very small and light rocks carried by the water in suspension.

Question 40

How are beaches formed?

Answer 40

They are formed when sentiment from a cliff or other sediment already in the water is moved by longshore drift or currents in the water to the base of the coastline and it builds up until there is a pile of little rocks or pebbles/sand. This creates a beach on the coastline which then becomes bigger or smaller if there is no protection to longshore drift.