The Influence of Different Factors on Coastal Systems

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How is wind created?
Wind is the movement of air flowing from high pressure (cool, falling air) to low pressure areas (warm, rising air). The movement from high to low is the air trying to reach equilibrium.
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How does the wind affect the waves?
It affects the angle, strength and fetch of the waves.
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How does wind affect the angle of the waves?
If the wind blows at an angle towards the coast, the resultant waves will also approach obliquely and generate long-shore drift, which causes more sediment transfer.
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How does wind affect the strength of the waves?
The stronger the wind, the more energy it can transfer to the waves, therefore creating more powerful, destructive waves that cause more erosion.
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How does wind affect the fetch of the waves?
The bigger the distance over which the wind blows, the more energy is transferred to the waves, causing more powerful, destructive waves that cause more erosion.
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What are aeolian processes?
Winds have the ability to weather, transport and deposit sediment which shapes the coastal zone - these are called aeolian processes.
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What is a tide?
Tides are the periodic rise and fall of the sea surface and are produced by the gravitational pull of the Moon and, to a lesser extent, the Sun.
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How do tidal ranges have an influence on coastal systems?
In more open areas, tidal range is low and so wave action is restricted to a narrow area of land, and vice versa. This means that less land is subjected to wave erosion than where the tidal range is larger, which is in more enclosed areas.
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What is an ocean current?
This is a continuous movement of ocean water. The currents are generated from the forces acting upon the water such as the earth's rotation, the wind, the temperature, and salinity differences.
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What are nearshore currents?
The current system caused by wave action in and near the coastal zone.
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What are offshore currents?
The offshore currents are those on the outer edge of the nearshore zone, further out to sea.
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What is a rip current and what do they influence?
A rip current is a narrow, powerful current of water running perpendicular to the beach, out into the ocean. Rip currents can often travel at 5mph or faster and influence the amount of sediment movement.
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Why do rip currents occur?
They occur when the receding flow becomes concentrated due to the presence of a sandbar. This traps any water trying to leave the beach, building up pressure. When it finds a way through/past the sandbar the water rushes out to sea with great force.
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What is a cusp?
A pointed and regular arc pattern of sediment along a beach. Rip currents often aid the formation of cusps on a beach.
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Why it is significant that ocean currents transfer heat energy when the strength of the current has a limited impact?
Heat energy directly affects air temperature; this has an impact on winds and therefore how much weathering takes place.
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What are the two key aspects of geology that influence the coastal landscape?
They are the lithology and structure of the coastal landscape.
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What is the lithology of a coastal landscape?
It is the general physical and chemical characteristics of a rock or the rocks in particular area e.g. hard or soft.
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What is the structure of coastal landscape?
The properties of individual rock types such as jointing, bedding, faulting and permeability.
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Which lithology is associated with high rates of erosion?
Weak lithology; this is because the particles have weak bonds between them.
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Besides erosion, weathering and mass movement, what else causes rocks to disintegrate?
Some rocks, such as limestone and chalk, are soluble in weak acids and vulnerable to the chemical weathering process of carbonation.
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What is strata?
A single bed of rock (often sedimentary), generally consisting of one kind of matter representing continuous deposition. In simple terms it is a layer of rock.
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What is it about bedding planes that can have a huge impact upon the coastal zone?
The angle at which these beds run have a huge impact upon the coastal zone, especially upon cliffs.
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How does horizontally-bedded strata affect the coastline?
Undercutting by wave action leads to rockfall; the cliffs retreat inland, parallel to the coast.
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How does seaward-dipping strata affect the coastline?
Undercutting removes basal support; the rock layers loosened by weathering slide into the sea along the bedding planes.
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How does landward-dipping strata affect the coastline?
Rocks loosened by wave action and weathering are difficult to dislodge; the slope profile is gradually lowered by weathering and mass movement.
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Which bedding plane angle erodes the quickest?
Seaward-dipping strata, then horizontally-bedded strata, then landward-dipping strata.
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Card 2

Front

How does the wind affect the waves?

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It affects the angle, strength and fetch of the waves.

Card 3

Front

How does wind affect the angle of the waves?

Back

Preview of the front of card 3

Card 4

Front

How does wind affect the strength of the waves?

Back

Preview of the front of card 4

Card 5

Front

How does wind affect the fetch of the waves?

Back

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