Chapter 7 - Costal Zones & Processes Flashcards
What is an active margin?
One which there is an active plate boundary at the continent’s edge.
What is a passive margin?
One at which there is a lack of an active plate boundary.
What is a beach?
A gently sloping surface washed over by the waves and covered by sediment.
What is a beach face?
It is the portion regularly washed over by the waves as tides rise and fall.
What is a longshore current?
It is when waves approach the beach at an angle, as the water washes up onto and down off the beach, and creates a net movement of water laterally along the shoreline.
What is littoral drift?
Gradual sand movement down the beach in the same general direction as the motion of the longshore current.
What is a surge?
An unusual increase in local sea level due the presence of a storm.
What are wave-cut platforms?
A distinctive costal feature that develops here the land is rising and/or the water is falling.
What is a wave refraction?
Deflection of the waves around irregularities in the coastline.
What are barrier islands?
They are long, low, narrow islands paralleling a coastline somewhat offshore from it.
What is an estuary?
It is a body of water along a coastline, open to the sea, in which the tide rises and falls and in which fresh and salt water meet and mix to create brackish water.
