GCSE Geography Unit 2 - Coastal Landscapes

Coastal Landscapes

Types Of Waves:

Destructive Waves: Waves break down onto the beach from a height and pulls sediment away with it. A very large wave with a strong backwash and weask swash.

Constructive Waves: Waves breaks forwards onto the beach and so builds up sediment. It s a small wave with a strong swash and weak backwash.

Types Of Weathering:

Biological Weathering: A seed falls into a crack, rain causes the seed to grow and roots force their way into the cracks. As the roots grow they break up the rock due to how strong they are.

Chemical Weathering: Rainwater can contain natural acids. Carbonates in weak rocks such as limestone are dissolved by weak acids. This leads to the cracks in the rock to expand.

Physical Weathering: Water fills cracks in rocks. As temperature increases, the water freezes and turns into ice. This causes the crack inside the rock to increase when the ice freezes it gets bigger in size.

Types Of Erosion:

Hydraulic Action: This is a form of weathering when waves/water currents move into cracks at high speed. This causes sediment to break off cliffs and get washed away.

Attrition: Waves smash rocks and pebbles on the shore into each other, and they break and become smoother and smaller.

Types Of Mass Movement:

Soil Creep: Very slow downhill movement. Gravity pulls water in the soil downhill and soil particles move with the water. Heavy rainfall causes faster downhill movement and the slope appears to have ripples.

Slumping: A large area of land is moving down a slope which is most common on clay cliffs. Dry weather makes the rock material contract and crack. When it rains, water gets into the cracks and the soil becomes saturated. A large piece of rock is pulled down the cliff face.

Landforms Created By Erosion:

Cliffs and Wave-Cut Platforms: A cliff is eroded at the bottom by corrosion or any type of cliff eroison. Waves break off pieces of rock at the bottom of the cliff and it gets washed away into the stream. The cliff above where the bottom half of the cliff has no support now, causing it to be unstable. Because of its lack of support and weight it will eventually fall due to gravity. This process is then constantly repeated.

Headlands and Bays: Headlands are formed when the sea attacks a section of…