Download 3.1 Shoreline Erosion - TeamanErosionProject

3.1 Shoreline Erosion
Aneesha
Kaelee
Liz
Lilia
Questions For You
• What happens to waves that are too big to
support themselves? What are they called?
• What is the perpendicular movement of the
sea water called?
Wave Energy
• Waves are made from wind and storms. The size
depends on how hard and long the wind blows.
• Waves travel in groups called wave trains.
• Waves that are too big to support themselves curl
and break. They are called surfs.
• A wave period is the time interval between
breaking waves.
• Waves crash into rocks in the ocean and break
off big boulders of bigger rock formations. Those
boulders eventually break down into sand.
Wave Erosion
• Sea cliffs are steep slopes that are formed
when waves erode and undercut rock.
• The rate at which sea cliffs erode depends on
the hardness of the rock and the energy of the
waves.
• Wave erosion causes sea stacks, sea arches,
sea caves, headlands, and wave-cut terraces
in sea cliffs.
Wave Deposits
(Beaches)
• Waves carry particles of different materials.
• Some of those particles include sand, rock, dead coral, and
shells.
• When all of those materials wash up on shore they gradually
build up to eventually form a beach.
• The colors and textures of sand can vary depending on where
the sand came from.
• Some sand comes from mineral quartz which is the most
common.
• Eroded coral makes white sand.
• A black sand beach is formed from broken down lava rocks.
Wave Deposits
( Wave angle and sand movement)
• Sand’s movement along the beach depends on
the angle at which the waves strike the
beach/shore.
• Usually, the waves hit the beach at a slight angle.
• The wave then retreats in a direction that is
perpendicular to the shore.
• The perpendicular movement of the sea water is
called a longshore current.
• The longshore current moves the sand on the
beach in a zigzag pattern.
Wave Deposits
(Offshore deposits)
• Waves that move at an angle create longshore
currents so when waves that erode material from
the shoreline, the longshore currents can pick
them up and then get rid of this material
offshore, which creates landforms in open water.
• A sandbar is an underwater ridge of sand, gravel,
or shell material.
• A barrier spit is an exposed sandbar that is
connected to the shore.
Questions For You
• What happens to waves that are too big to
support themselves? What are they called?
• When waves are to big to support themselves
they curl and break. They are called surfs.
• What is the perpendicular movement of the
sea water called?
• The perpendicular movement of the sea water
is called a longshore current.
The End