Summary

Summary Edexcel A Level Geography - Dynamic Landscapes - Coastal Landscapes and Change

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Module
Unit 1 - Dynamic Landscapes

Institution
PEARSON (PEARSON)

Summary notes including case studies of Edexcel A Level Geography - Dynamic Landscapes - Coastal Landscapes and Change

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Uploaded on January 3, 2024
Number of pages 19
Written in 2019/2020
Type Summary

Costal Processes
Over 1 billion people live on coasts that are at risk from flooding.

The Littoral zone:

Rocky

coastline – Cliffs varying in height from a few metres to hundreds of metres e.g.
Hangmans cliffs in Devon
Coastal plains – Beach, sand dunes and mud flats

Cliffed coast  Transition between land and sea is abrupt
 Cliffs are vertical
 Foreshore is exposed at low tide as a wave-cut platform
Sandy coastline  Sand dunes
 Dune vegetation
Estuarine coastline  Found at the mouth of a river
 Mud flats
 Gradual transition from land to sea

Primary coast – dominated by land-based processes e.g. deposition at the coast
from rivers
Secondary coast – dominated by marine erosion and deposition processes
Emergent coastline – coasts are rising relative to sea levels
Submergent coastline – coast is being flooded by rising sea levels/subsiding land

Marine erosion – steep, unvegetated cliff
Sub-aerial – curved and low relief cliff (surface runoff/mass movement)
Sub-aerial:
 Weathering – chemical, biological, mechanical breakdown of rocks
 Mass movement – landslides, slumps and rock falls
 Surface runoff – water during heavy rain flowing down the cliff face and
causing erosion of it
Lithology

Clastic (glue) Cracks, fractures and fissures

Crystalline (interlocking crystals)

,Weathered
Calcite in Limestone
by solution
Igneous and metamorphic rocks
Quartz in sandstone

Dynamic equilibrium
Coastal plains Balance of inputs and outputs e.g.
deposition and erosion at same rate
 Low-lying and low-relief
 Wetlands and marshes
 Deposition so coastal
accretion
 Low energy environments
E.g. Atlantic Coastal Plain
USA
Strata – different layers of rock
Deformation – degree to which rocks have been deformed by tectonic activity
Faulting – presence of major faults
Discordant Coastline
 Form where rock strata is perpendicular to the coastlines
 Dominated by headlands and bays
 Less-resistant rock is eroded to form bays
 More-resistant geology remains as headlands protruding into the sea. E.g.
West Cork coast in Ireland

Wave refraction
 In deep water, wave crests are parallel
 Waves slow down + wave height increases as waves approach shallow
water
 Wave crests refract, becoming curved, spreading out in bays +
concentrating on headlands
 Overall effect is to concentrate powerful waves at headlands (greater
erosion and create lower, diverging wave crests in bays, reducing erosion
Holocene – geological era that begun ~12,000 years ago at the end of the last
Pleistocene era
Concordant Coastline
 Rock strata runs parallel to coastline e.g. Dalmatian coast of Croatia
 Folded by tectonic activity in a series of anticlines and synclines

Submerged – drowned by rising sea levels
 Creation of narrow, long islands
arranged in lines offshore

, Lulworth in Dorset (limestone)

 At Lulworth cove and Worbarrow Bay, marine erosion has broken through
the resistant beds, and then rapidly eroded the wide coves behind
 Behind these coves is resistant chalk which prevents erosion further inland
Cliff Profiles
Rates of Erosion
Igneous e.g. granite, basalt, dolerite
 Very slow erosion
 Igneous rocks are crystalline – interlocking crystals make strong, hard,
erosion-resistant rocks
 Often have few joints so limited weaknesses can be exploited
Metamorphic e.g. slate, marble
 Slow erosion
 Many metamorphic rocks exhibit a feature called foliation, where all
crystals are orientated in one
direction which promotes
weaknesses
 Often folded and heavily fractures
Sedimentary e.g. sandstone,
limestone, shale
 Moderate to fast erosion
 Most are clastic and erode faster
than crystalline rocks
 Geologically, younger rocks tend
to be weaker
 Rocks with many bedding planes
and fractures are most vulnerable
to erosion

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