Submergent and Emergent Features

Question 1

What are dalmation coasts

Answer 1

• Dalmatian coasts
• Mountains run parallel or concordant to the coastline
• Coastal submergence produces long narrow inlets with a chain of islands parallel to the coast
• Inlets are flooded valleys

Question 2

What are Rias

Answer 2

• submergent feature - the rise of sea level or land sunk
• Dendritic patterns of draining
• River valleys drowned
• Deepest at the mouth

Question 3

Explain the formation of a ria

Answer 3

• sea-level rise - eustatic change leads to isostatic readjustment
• seawater floods into the river causing the floodplain and the river bed to flood
• the upper course of the river does not get submerged
• this causes a dendritic pattern of draining

Question 4

What are fjords

Answer 4

• Drowned glacial valley
• Steep valley
• straight and narrow
• U shape cross-section
• Glacial rock basin at the end

Question 5

Explain the formation of a Fjord

Answer 5

• Happens in interglacial time period - due to glacial ice melt as climate increases
• Sea drowned the lower part of the glacial valley that was cut to a much lower sea level - first needs glaciation to occur to create a glacial valley
• The glacial valley is a U shaped valley due to the glacier pushing its way through the valley - glacial erosion
• Threshold is due to the reduced glacial erosion as the glacier comes in contract with the sea and ice becomes thinner - glacier deposits when it hits the sea making the threshold