Year 13 - Coastal Processes and Landforms

A quick recap this morning of the main processes affecting the coastline (various processes of erosion, sub-aerial processes...), how geology affects rates of erosion, and then various erosional and depositional landforms that you need to be familiar with:

- headlands and bays
- caves, blowholes, geos, arches, stacks, stumps
- wave-cut notches and platforms

- beaches (storm beaches, berms, ridges, runnels, cusps, ripples)
- spits, bars and tombolos

Some nice sketch maps of the key landforms of the Holderness Coast and the Jurassic Coast, a discussion about whether Chesil Beach was a bar or a tombolo, and the some short-answer exam questions - don't forget that if you have time before next Wednesday, that it would be useful for you to have had a go at marking your questions.

My photos that we looked at of the Flamborough area and of the Jurassic Coast are all on Flickr - not brilliant pictures, but should serve as a bit of a reminder of the landforms and features that we talked about this morning.

Coasts may be "abandoned to the sea"

That's according to Lord Smith, the new chairman of the Environment Agency, who says that coastal erosion is the most difficult issue that the Agency have to deal with, but that some parts of the coastline are so badly eroded that they are not worth protecting.


The picture shows part of the Holderness Coast (East Yorkshire), but large parts of Norfolk and Suffolk are under threat as well. Read the full article from the BBC here.