Lecture notes
AQA/CIE A Level Coastal Landforms
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- AQA
Precise lecture notes regarding coastal landforms, e.g. beaches, compound spits, tombolos etc, and their respective formations (the effect of longshore drift and the like).
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Coastal Landforms Depositional Landforms
Beaches
Quick revise
Deposition along a coast occurs in areas of low-energy waves where the input of material
exceeds the output.
Beaches and other depositional landforms represent a store within the marine system.
Beaches tend to be composed of either sand or shingle but sometimes both occur at
different places along the beach profile.
Shingle beaches tend to be steeper than sandy beaches.
At the upper end of the beach, storm ridges occur.
As these are often beyond the reach of waves except in the highest tides, they may become
colonised by salt-tolerant plants.
Lower down the beach, there are ridges or berms which correspond to successively lower
tides.
The profile of a beach is constantly changing but will show the greatest contrast
between spring and neap tides and between summer and winter seasons.
Longshore Drift
Quick revise
When longshore drift transports material along the coast, it sometimes comes across an
estuary or a change in the direction of the coastline.
In either case, the transport process tends to carry on moving the material in the same
direction.
Over time, a ridge of material will build up into the deeper water.
This will form a spit.
, Eventually the spit may form a substantial feature, many miles long with sand dunes and
plants, possibly even buildings on it.
Many spits show a series of recurved ends which relate to material moved by winds
creating waves from a different direction.
In the low-energy environment behind the spit, deposition of fine silt and mud will occur
and salt marsh forms.
This helps to stabilise the landform.
Over time, spits may move inland and many are regularly broken by storms and reform in
subsequent years.
If longshore drift carries material across a bay, it may form a bay barrier or bar.
Such bars rarely form across estuaries as the power of the river erodes material from the
ends of the spit if the gap becomes very narrow. If longshore drift transports material across
to a nearby island, then it forms a tombolo linking the island to the mainland.
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