Coastal landscapes

• Psammosere: a sand dune succession
• inputs into the coastal system are energy and sediment
• 11 sediment cells within the UK
• Higher tidal range occurs due to the spring tide when the moon and sun are aligned while a lower range occurs due to a neap tide while the sun and moon are perpendicular
• mudflats are characterised by pioneer species such as Glasswort.
• mudflats eventually build up and become salt marshes which spend most of the time above sea level.
• smooth cord grass is found close to the water on a salt marsh while salt marsh hay is further away from the water
• salt marshes and mangroves build up sediment and create new land
• red mangroves: found closest to the water, prop roots arch out of the water
• black mangroves: have breathing tubes (allow tree to take in Oxygen) and are able to survive salty conditions by bleading out salt.
• white mangroves: usually grow furthest away from the salty water and do not have prop roots. (almost a forest and the final succession)
• Coral Polyps create a calcareous skeleton which it leaves behind when it dies.
• coral reefs have a symbiotic relationship with algae known as zooxanthellae (algae relies on coral for habitat and coral polyps feed on algae)
• Macro tidal range: >4 meters 

  Meso tidal: 2-4 meters 

  Micro tidal: <2 meters
• conditions for coral growth: clear sea to allow light penetration, 23 to 29 degrees, high salinity, shallow water less than 100m, well aerated water from strong wave activity.
• High energy coast: Holderness.

  Low energy: Studland Bay.
• Lithology: the general physical characteristics of rocks (hardness, chemical composition, permeability)
• Geology: Lithology + structure
• Cliff profile: the hight and angle of a cliff face as well as its features, such as wave cut notches.
• Concordant: Coves created.

  Discordant: Headlands and bays.

   
• Structure:  deformation (altered by tectonic activity: anticline and syncline (folds in the rock), angle of strata (Dip), faults, fissures and joints.

  Could also be concordant and discordant coastline.
• more constructive waves in summer and destructive in winter
• Eustatic change: global changes in sea level caused by changes in the volume of water in the oceans
• isostatic sea level change: a local rise or fall in land levels due to  subsidence or uplift of the crust related either to changes in the amount of ice on the land, or to growth or erosion of mountains.
• neap tide: where the moon and sun are perpendicular leading to a low tidal range
• spring tide: when the sun and moon are aligned leading to the larges tidal range
• emergent landforms: occur due to falls in sea levels: marine terraces, raised beaches, relic cliffs
• submerging landforms: fjords and rias
• Rias: a coastal inlet formed by the partial submergence of a v shaped valley created by a river network
• Fjords: a coastal landform created by the submergence of a glaciated valley ( u shaped )
• Coastal depositional landforms: Beaches, Dunes, Spit, Bar (LSD covering cove or estuary), Tombolo, cuspate forelands
• Estuaries are low energy environments with the dominant force being deposition therefore they become a sediment sink from sand and mud.
• Mudflats are coastal wetlands form when mud is deposited often through Flocculation.
• marshes are characterised by pioneer species such as glasswort that can survive the salt (halophytic) and grow up to survive submergence for long periods of time.
• Mud flats are positioned between spring low water and mean low water tidal points they are the closest possible land to the water.
• Salt marshes form above the mudflats where there is a steady supply of sediment and there is shelter from waves behind a spit or on the edge of an easterly 
• Formation of a Salt Marsh = Halosere
• Mudflat formed by deposition 

   

  Plants such as algae colonise it which traps sediment which build up.

   

  Seeds of salt tolerant plants colonise the marsh and vegetation increases therefore increases the Humus level and sediment.

  Sea water cover is reduced and more plants are able to colonise
• Plants are adapted to bleed out excess salt and have strong stems to resist currents.
• Plants: cord grass, spartina alterniflora (web like roots to dig into mud and take in maximum oxygen and nutrients).