Shores and coastal

processes
 Objective:
To understand how coastal processes
shape shores and coastlines and
how these processes affect people.
 Coast and shore defined
Coast: Area of contact between land and sea; Extend
inland until meets a different geographical setting
Shoreline: Precise boundary where water meets
adjacent dry land

Shoreline Coast
 Waves and Tides
Waves: transport energy by motion; ultimate source of
wave energy is the sun
Longshore current: Current that parallels shoreline
developed by waves coming in at an angle to shore
 Waves and Tides
Tides: Daily fluctuations in the height of the ocean;
Caused by gravitational attraction of water to sun
and moon
High tides are when
the water reaches
High tide Low tide its highest point.

Low tides are when

the water reaches
its lowest point.
 What Causes Tides?
• Tides are caused by the interaction of Earth, the
Moon, and the Sun.
• Gravity is the reason for tides.
• Gravity is the force
exerted by an object
that pulls other objects toward
it.
 Moon’s Gravity and Tides
• The Moon’s gravity affects the water on Earth’s surface.

• Since the Moon is close to the Earth, it has a strong

gravitational pull on it (closer objects have stronger
gravitational pull).
• In places where there are tidal bulges, high tide is
occurring along the coastlines.
 Spring Tides
• Spring tides occur 2 times a month, during a full
and new moon when the Earth, Sun, and Moon
are lined up.
• Spring tides are higher and lower than normal tides.

• “Strong tides”
 Neap Tides
• Neap tides occur in between spring tides, at the
first and third quarters of the Moon when the Sun
and Moon pull at right angles to each other.
• Neap tides are not
as high or
low as tides.
• “weak tides”
 Coastal erosion
Waves are dominant mechanism in coastal erosion.
Water forced into cracks in rock at high pressures.
 Coastal erosion
Wave energy is focused on headlands (prominent
cliffs that jut out into deep water); attack the sides of
headlands and form sea caves, sea arches, and
sea stacks by undercutting them.
Sea stack with sea arch in it
 Preventing coastal erosion
• Can establish sand dunes and stabilize existing
dunes
• Can build seawalls: concrete or riprap structures
designed to protect shoreline from waves

Riprap sea wall

Sea wall in action

 Coastal deposition
Occurs when amount of sediment exceeds
wave/current ability to transport it
Beaches: relatively narrow strips of sand, pebbles, or
cobbles deposited along a shoreline
• 90% of beach sediment comes from streams that
drain to coast; transported by longshore currents
 Coastal deposition
Spit and/or hook: Narrow strip of sand that grows
across the mouth of bay due to longshore current
(hooks are hook-shaped)
 Coastal deposition
Barrier islands: Long narrow Islands made of sand
that flank main shoreline and separate bays from
open ocean
 Coastal deposition
Tombolo: Narrow strip of sediment deposited behind a
sea stack by refracted waves
 Coastal deposition
Humans often induce coastal deposition on purpose
or by accident
• Use groins or breakwaters to disrupt longshore
currents or block waves and induce deposition
Breakwater

Groins
 Plate tectonics and coasts
Rifted continental margins tend to be dominated by
depositional features.
Active continental margins tend to be dominated by
erosional features.
 Coastal Processes
Coastal Erosion is the wearing away of the land by the
sea and is done by destructive waves.
Five common processes that cause coastal erosion:
 
1. Corrasion 
2. Abrasion 
3. Hydraulic action
4. Attrition 
5. Corrosion/solution 
• Abrasion happens when breaking waves
containing sediment fragments erode the
shoreline, particularly headland. It is also
referred to as the sand paper effect.
• Corrasion is when waves pick up beach
materials and hurl them at the base of a cliff.
• Hydraulic action. The effect of waves as they
hit cliff faces, the air is compressed into cracks
and is released as waves rushes back
seaward. The compressing and releasing of
air as waves presses cliff faces and rushes
back to sea will cause cliff material to break
away.
•  Attrition is the process when waves bump
rocks and pebbles against each other leading
to the eventual breaking of the materials.
• Corrosion/solution involve
s dissolution by weak acids
such as when the carbon
dioxide in the atmosphere
is dissolved into water
turning it into a weak
carbonic acid. Several
rocks ( limestone) are
vulnerable to this acidic
water and will dissolve into
it. The rate of dissolution is
affected by the
concentration of carbonates
& other minerals in the
water. As it increases,
dissolution becomes
slower. 
Thank
you