landscapes and landforms Flashcards
What are landscapes?
area of coast that has a range of features
What are landforms?
Feature caused by coastal processes that are individual parts of the landscape.
What determines the landscape of a coastline?
Whether the coastline is concordant or discordant.
How does a cove form?
On a concordant coastline, lithological weaknesses are exploited creating positive feedback of erosion. Wave refraction breaks into the softer rock causing constructive waves and the build up of a beach.
How do headlands and bays form?
On a discordant coastline, soft rock is eroded quicker than hard rock (differential erosion) creating headlands (protruding hard rock) and bays (weaker soft rock).
How do caves, arches, stacks and stumps form?
Lithological weaknesses are exploited and wave refraction erodes through. The cave is undercut and there is rockfall of the instable arch roof leaving a stack which then collapses to a stump.
How do wave cut platforms form?
At high tide, the wave attacks the cliff base in the backshore. This creates a wave-cut notch and an overhang develops. The notch then erodes to a platform and the overhang collapses leaving a flat cliff face.
