Rivers and coasts Flashcards
What are sediment cells?
- Sections of coasts that are mostly closed system and there are 11 of them in England Wales
- In a state of dynamic equilibrium, input and output constantly changing but remain in balance
What is a positive feedback loop?
- When a coast is taken away from a state of dynamic equilibrium
- If people walk over a sand dune and the vegetation is destroyed the dune becomes more susceptible to erosion and over time it will completely erode and deposition will stop
What is a negative feedback loop?
- Lessens any change occurred within the system bringing the littoral closer back to dynamic equilibrium
What are the littoral zones?
- The littoral zone is the area of the coast where land is subject to wave action. It is constantly changing and varies
Offshore: The area of deeper water beyond the point at which waves begin to break. Friction between the waves and the sea bed may cause some distortion of the wave shape.
Nearshore: The area of shallow water beyond the low tide mark, within which friction between the seabed and waves distorts the wave sufficiently to cause it to break. (breaker zone) There may be a breakpoint bar between the offshore and nearshore zones.
Foreshore: The area between the high tide and the low tide mark.
Back-shore: The area above the high tide mark, affected by wave action only during major storm events.
What is valentines classification?
- The different types of coastlines
- Advancing coastlines are caused by emerging coasts or high levels of deposition
- Retreating coastlines could be caused by submergence or erosion
- Emergent coastlines caused by post-glacial rebound and sea level drop
- Submergent coastlines caused by emerging coast lines, tectonics and crustal sag
What are the 6 types of erosion?
- Abrasion, sediment is carried along the coastline scraping it and damaging it
- Attrition, Stones and pebbles hit against each other smoothing each other out.
- Hydraulic action, air is forced into the cracks of a cliff causing pressurised explosions fracturing the cliff breaking off chunks
- Solution, mildy acidic sea water can cause alkali rock such as limestone to erode
When are erosion rates highest?
- Waves have a long fetch
- They approach the cliff perpendicular
- High tide, more cliff is able to be eroded
- Heavy rainfall, water permeates through permeable rock weakening cliffs
What are the factors affecting a rocks vulnerability to erosion?
- Whether they are clastic or crystalline, clastic means sedimentary meaning cemented sediment particles which are more easily eroded
- Amount of cracks, fractures and fissures
- The lithology of a rock
What are the three types of rock, examples of each and their vulnerability to erosion?
- sedimentary
- Ex: Limestone
- Rate of erosion: very fast
- Structure: Lots of faults and bedding planes - Metamorphic
- Ex: Slate, schist, marble
- Rate of erosion, slow
- Structure, Crystal all face in same direction - Igneous
- Ex: granite, basalt
- Rate of erosion, Very slow
- Structure, Interlocking crystal meaning high resistance
How do cave, arches, stacks and stumps form?
- Occurs on headlands
- Cave, marine erosion widens faults in the base of headlands
- Arch, cave widens due to marine erosion and sub-aerial processes eroding either side of the headland
- Stack, arch continues to widen until it cant support itself detaching from the mainland due to mass movement
- Stump, Marine erosion attacks the bottom of the stack causing it to fall forming a stump
How do wave cut notches and platforms form?
- Marine erosion (abrasion) attacks the bottom of the cliff forming a wave cut notch, sub aerial erosion weakens the cliff from the top and the cliff face becomes unstable and topples through mass movement leaving behind the smooth platform of unaffected cliff base.
How are retreating cliffs formed?
- New cliff faces are formed through repeated platforms and notches cause a retreating coastline forming new vliff faces
How is a blow hole formed?
- Pothole on the top of a cliff caused by chemical weathering
- Marine erosion forms a cave in the cliff
- The two eventually meet and waves travel up the blowhole splashing out the top
What is longshore drift?
- Transports sediment along coasts and sediment cells
- Waves hit the beach at an angle according to the prevailing winds
- Waves push sediment up the beach in this direction in the swash
- Due to gravity wave carries sediment back down the beach known as backwash
- This moves sediment down the beach over time
What are the different alignments of waves?
- Swash aligned, wave crests approach parallel to coast meaning little longshore drift
- Drift aligned, sediment travels far up the beach due to significant angle of waves
What are the different types of deposition?
- Gravity settling, waves energy becomes low and sediment is deposited starting with the largest pieces
- Flocculation, Particles clump together due to chemical attraction and sink due to high density.
How do spits form?
- A spit is a long strip of deposited material
- Longshore drift occurs and the waves lose energy usually behind a headland depositing sediment
- This creates a spit and over time the prevailing wind will change causing a hooked end
- The water behind it will form a salt marsh strengthening the spit
- The length will be capped depending on surrounding currents and estuaries preventing deposition
How do bars form?
- A spit stretches across a bay over time uniting two headlands forming a lagoon behind it and due to it being a low energy area it may become a salt marsh
How do tombolos form?
- A beach or bar that connects to an islan due to wave refraction from the island reducing wave velocity May be covered at high tide
How do cuspate forelands form?
- Occurs on triangle shaped headlands
- Longshore drift on each side forms beaches and when they meet form a cuspate foreland
How do offshore bars form?
- Waves dont have enough energy to carry sediment to the beach
- Formed when the wave breaks early scouring the seabed depositing its sediment
How do sand dunes form?
- Prevailing winds blow sediment to the back of the beach
- Require large amounts of sand and a large tidal range so the sand can dry and is light enough to be carried by the wind to the back of the beach
- Embryo dunes, Upper beach area where sand begins to accumulate around a small obstacle
- Yellow dunes, as the dune gets bigger vegetation may begin to strengthen the dune which is the tallest one over the whole process
- Grey dunes, sand develops into soil with lots of moisture and nutrients as vegetation dies enabling more growth
How do dune slacks form?
- ## Water becomes trapped between dunes allowing moisture loving grass such as willow grass
How does health and woodland form?
- Sandy soils develop allowing less brackish plants allowing the growth of woodland
What factors affect the stability of depositional landforms?
- Major storms can transport major amounts of sediment
- Depositional landforms rely on continuous amounts of sediment meaning a change in dynamic equilibrium can influence landforms
What is weathering?
- Weathering is the breakdown of rocks (mechanical, biological or chemical) over time, leading to the transfer of material into the littoral zone, where it becomes an input to sediment cells.
What are the different types of physical weathering?
- Freeze-thaw (Frost-Shattering): Water enters cracks in rocks and then the water freezes overnight during the winter. As it freezes, water expands by around 10% in volume which increases the pressure acting on a rock, causing cracks to develop. Over time these cracks grow, weakening the cliff making is more vulnerable to other processes of erosion
- Salt Crystallisation: As seawater evaporates, salt is left behind. Salt crystals will grow over time, exerting pressure on the rock, which forces the cracks to widen. Salt can also corrode ferrous (materials that contains iron) rock due to chemical reactions
- Wetting and Drying: Rocks such as clay expand when wet and then contract again when they are drying. The frequent cycles of wetting and drying at the coast can cause these rocks and cliffs to break up