Submergent Features Flashcards
How are Rias created?
By rising sea levels drowning river valleys.
Floodplain of river will vanish beneath the rising waters, but on the edges of uplands only the middle and upper courses valleys will be filled with sea water.
Leaving the higher land dry.
What happened in Devon and Cornwall?
Sea level rose and drowned the valleys of the rivers flowing off Dartmoor and the uplands of Cornwall.
Describe what a ria is?
They have a long section and cross profile typical of a river valley and usually a dendritic system of drainage.
Give examples of where Fjords are found?
Coasts of Norway.
Southwest New Zealand.
British Columbia in Canada.
Southern Chile and Greenland.
What are the fjords like in western Scotland?
Fjords aren’t well developed as those in the areas above because the ice was not as thick and did not last for the same length of time.
Describe the characteristics of a fjord.
They are drowned glacial valleys.
Steep valley sides, fairly straight and narrow.
Typical U-shaped cross section with hanging valleys on either side.
How are rias different to fjords?
Fjords are not deepest at their mouth.
They consist of glacial rock basis with a shallower section at the end, known as the threshold.
How do people think the threshold was formed?
When the sea drowned the lower part of glacial valley that were cut to match a lower seal level.
Its thought it was due to reduced glacial erosion as the glacier came in contact with the sea and ice became thinner.
Give a good example of a fjord?
Sogne Fjord in Norway which is nearly 200km long.
Milford Sound in New Zealand.
How is a Dalmatian coast formed?
Where the topography of the land runs parallel to the coastline and becomes flooded by seal level rise.
How did the Dalmatian coast get its name?
From the Croatian coast in the Adriatic, the flooded valleys run parallel to the coast rather than at right-angles to it as in the case with fjords and rias.
