Grades 9 and 10 - Geography - High School - Coastal Deposition — Flashcards

Ah, the beach! Golden sand for lying on, the sea for swimming and surfing, rocky headlands that can be walked along, bays that are sheltered from the worst of the wind and waves, and tall, towering cliffs with rocky shingle beaches below and caves carved into their faces.

All these are beautiful features of a coastline, but have you ever thought about what caused them - specifically, how stuff is deposited on the coastal margins? Next time you’re walking on the shore you’ll be able to understand why the waves make two different noises as they wash up the beach and then wash down again, and what a reef actually is. Deposition can create marshes and coastal barriers as well as sand and shingle beaches.

Coastal deposition is exactly what it sounds like - the laying down (or deposition) of material at the coastline by the sea. That material can come from rivers eroding material off the land and sometimes material lost in one country can wash up in another. Various management techniques exist to help encourage deposition at the coast, normally to help protect property and infrastructure, but further erosion elsewhere along the coast can be caused by this forced deposition. Deposition may also be a problem. The silting up of shipping channels will require the local authorities to dredge them using specially designed ships and machinery. Sand dunes, sand banks and other features may become colonized by plants that can stabilize their structures and lead eventually to the creation of new land.