Coastal Landforms - Deposition

• Deposition occurs along the coast when waves no longer have enough energy to transport sediment. Depending on how and where the sediment is deposited, a variety of landforms can be produced.
• A beach can be described as a depositional landform extending from approximately the highest high tide to the lowest low tide.
• Beach accretion will take place during a prolonged period of constructive waves driven by storms many hundreds of miles away. Destructive waves, resulting from localised storms may excavate the beach, removing vast quantities of sediment and even exposing previously covered wave-cut platforms
• Beaches can be described as being swash aligned or drift aligned depending on their orientation relative to the prevaling wind (and wave) direction

  
• Drift-aligned beaches form where the waves approach the coast at an angle. Longshore drift (a transfer process) moves sediment along the beach,
• Swash-aligned beaches tend to form in low- energy environments such as bays that are affected by waves arriving roughly parallel to the shore.
• Factors needed for a salt marsh to develop are 1. Sheltered shorelines that are not exposed to powerful waves. 2. Often in a river estuary where rivers meet the sea or landward side of a spit. 3. The saltwater flows gently into the estuary bringing fine sediment which meets the equally slow moving river which is also carrying its own load of fine sediment 4. When two flows meet we have flocculation where individual clay particles aggregate together to form larger particles that can sink to the bed.