Page 339 - Fundamentals of Geomorphology

322 PROCESS AND FORM

Plate 13.1 Horizontal shore platform at low tide,
Atia Point, Kaikoura Peninsula, New Zealand.
Higher Pleistocene coastal terraces are also visible,
the highest standing at 108 m.
(Photograph by Wayne Stephenson)
Figure 13.5 Three major forms on rocky coasts: shore
platforms and plunging cliffs
including cliffs, notches, ramps and ramparts, and several
small-scale weathering (including solution pools and
tafoni, p. 157) and erosional features. Indeed, shore
and upon biological factors. Tidal effects are also signif-
icant as they determine the height of wave attack and platforms, cliffs, stacks, arches, caves, and many other
the kind of waves doing the attacking, and as they may landforms routinely form conjointly.
influence weathering and biological activities. The tide
itself possesses no erosive force. Cliffs, notches, ramps, ramparts, and
Plunging-cliff coasts lack any development of shore potholes
platforms. Most plunging cliffs are formed by the drown-
ing of pre-existing, wave-formed cliffs resulting from a Cliffs are steep or vertical slopes that rise precipitously
fall of land level or a rise of sea level. from the sea or from a basal platform (Plate 13.3). About
80 per cent of the world’s oceanic coasts are edged with
cliffs (Emery and Kuhn 1982). Cliff-base notches are
sure signs of cliff erosion (Plate 13.4). Shallow notches
Landforms of cliffs and platforms
are sometimes called nips. The rate at which notches
Several coastal features of rocky coasts are associated with grow depends upon the strength of the rocks in which
the shore platforms and plunging cliffs (Figure 13.6), the cliff is formed, the energy of the waves arriving at the