GEOLOGICAL

PROCESSES
AND
HAZARDS

Prepared by:
Group 4
 MARINE AND COASTAL
PROCESSES

Damage Caused by hurricanes be

divided into three:

Storm surge
Wind damage
Flooding
Tides
Storm Surge
• is a dome of water 65-80 kilometers wide
that sweeps across the coast near the point
where the eye makes landfall.
• The height of the water above the normal
tide level.
• It adds 2-3 meters to normal tide height.
• The most important factor responsible
for the development of a storm surge is
the piling up of ocean water by strong
onshore winds.
• Storm surge is always intense on the
right side of the eye where winds are
blowing toward the shore.
• The net winds on the right side of an
advancing storm is 225 kilometers per
hour.
Storm Surge
Wind Damage
• The force of the wind is sufficient to
cause total ruin.
• Mobile houses are particularly
vulnerable.
• Strong winds can create a
dangerous barrage of flying debris.
Wind Damage
Flooding
• Heavy rains may affect places hundreds of
kilometers from the coast for several days
after the storm.
• Hurricanes weaken as they move inland, yet
the remnant of the storm can still yield 15-30
centimeters of rain as they move inland.
• Most wind damage occurs within 20
kilometers of the coast .
• Storm can produce extensive flooding long
after winds have diminished. Sometimes the
damage from inland flooding exceeds storm
surge destruction.
Flooding
Tides
• Are caused by differences in the earth
gravitational pull exerted by the moon on the
earth.
• The moon’s gravitational force is strongest on
the side of the earth nearest the moon and
the weakest in the side farthest from the
moon.
• The moon’s gravitational pull produce tides. It
causes the earth to stretch.
• Two set of ocean per day:
Two high
Two low
• The sun also contributes to ocean tides but only half .
• The Higher-than- average high tides and lower-than-average
low tides called Spring tides.
• Spring tides occur at the times of a new or a full moon.
• When the moon is half way between new and full, the solar
tides and lunar tides
• partly cancel each other.
• Then High tides are lower than average and low tides are
higher than average called Neap tides
• There are also atmospheric tides which regulate the cosmic
rays that reach earth surface.
Tides
Waves
 Shoreline undergo modification chiefly by
the action of wind-driven wave by the frictional
draft of the wind on the water surface .
When the Water depth is about one-half
the wavelength, the wave starts to break.
The energy expend by the breaking wave
erodes the shore zone and transport sediments.
Wave motion tends to smooth irregular
shoreline as a result of wave refraction and long
shore drift.
Wind driven was coming toward the shore
will have parts of the wave front affected by the
bottom topography at different distances from
the shore.
The long term effect of wave refraction is
the erosion of the projecting land
masses and smoothing out of the
shoreline.
An individual sand particle will be pushed
up the beach by the incoming waves and
then carried downslope by the backwash
of the wave.
This movement result in a slow lateral drift
of particles along the shore, which is
called long shore drift
-END-