Enquiry Question 2

Question 1

What is wavelength?

Answer 1

The distance between the crests of two waves.

Question 2

What is a wave crest?

Answer 2

The top of the wave, the highest point.

Question 3

What is a wave trough?

Answer 3

The lowest point between two waves.

Question 4

What is swash?

Answer 4

Waves moving up the beach.

Question 5

What is backwash?

Answer 5

Water moving back down the beach into the sea.

Question 6

What is wave height?

Answer 6

The height difference between the crest and the trough of a wave.

Question 7

What is the fetch?

Answer 7

The distance of open water over witch the waves move.

Question 8

What are some characteristics of a permeable rock?

Answer 8

They have many cracks, joints and bedding planes. If a rock is permeable it means that water can pass through the rock.

Question 9

What are some characteristics of a porous rock?

Answer 9

They have spaces, or pores within them and also allow water to pass through.

Question 10

What are some characteristics of an impermeable rock?

Answer 10

They do not have spaces or many joints so do not allow water to pass through.

Question 11

What is a storm beach?

Answer 11

They are formed by spring tides. They consist of the largest material thrown up by the strong swash of the larger waves.

Question 12

What are beach cusps?

Answer 12

Crescent-shaped indentations that form on beaches of mixed sand and shingle.

Question 13

What is hydraulic action?

Answer 13

When waves trap air in cracks or joints in the rock and the pressure buildup weakens the rock.

Question 14

What is abrasion?

Answer 14

When waves pick up sand and pebbles from the sea bed and the waves break, forcing the material to be hurled at the cliff base and chips away the rock.

Question 15

What is corrosion (solution)?

Answer 15

When cliffs are formed from alkaline rock, or an alkaline cement bonds the rock particles together, weak acids in the seawater can dissolve them.

Question 16

What is attrition?

Answer 16

When rocks knock together and hit each other and wear each other down into smaller pebbles.

Question 17

What are some examples of erosional landforms?

Answer 17

Headlands and bays, 
Wave cut notch,
Shoreline platform (wave cut platform),
Cliff,
Cave, arch, stack and stump.

Question 18

What are the four types of sediment transportation?

Answer 18

Traction - large rocks rolled along the seabed,
Saltation - smaller rocks ‘bounce’ along the seabed,
Suspension - lighter sediment carried in the water,
Solution - dissolved sediment carried in water.

Question 19

What are some types of coastal weathering processes?

Answer 19

-Mechanical:
Freeze thaw action,
Wetting and drying,
Salt weathering,
-Chemical:
Carbonation,
-Biological:
Plant roots,
Animals.

Question 20

What is a sediment budget?

Answer 20

The amount of sediment available within a cell.

Question 21

What are the main forms of coastal mass movement?

Answer 21

Soil creep,
Solifluction,
Earth flows and mud flows,
Rock falls,
Rock/debris slides,
Slumps.

Question 22

What factors affect the type of mass movement that occurs in an area?

Answer 22

The angle or slope of the cliff,
The rock type and its structure,
The vegetation cover,
How wet the ground is.