Processes

• Abrasion is when rocks and other materials carried by the sea are picked up by strong waves and thrown against the coastline, causing more material to be broken off and carried by the sea.
• Attrition is when material such as rocks and stones carried by waves hit and knock against each other, wearing them down.
• Coastal recession is the retreat of a coastline due to erosion, sea-level rise or submergence
• Corrasion is a form of erosion where breaking waves fling material at a cliff face, physically knocking off material
• Corrosion is when the acid in seawater and some types of seaweed attacks particular rock minerals, causing erosion and weakening
• Dynamic equilibrium is where a natural system tries to achieve a balance by making constant changes in response to a constantly changing system
• Fetch is the distance the wave travels before it reaches the coastline. Distance to the nearest land mass in the direction in which the wave travels.
• Freeze-thaw is a form of physical sub-aerial weathering where water freezes in the cracks of a rock, expands and enlarges the crack, therefore weakens the rock
• Glacial erosion is the removal of loose material by glacier ice, involving plucking, abrasion, crushing and basal meltwater (necessary in the formation of fjords)
• Hydraulic action is the pressure of compressed air forced into cracks in a rock face, causing the rock to weaken and break apart
• Longshore drift is the transportation of sediment along a beach. It is determined by the direction of the prevailing wind
• Mass movement is the falling or movement of rock, often due to gravity
• Plant succession is the change to a plant community due to growing conditions adapting (e.g. sand dunes, salt marshes)
• Saltation is when smaller sediment bounces along the sea bed, being pushed by currents. The sediment is too heavy to be picked up by the flow of the water
• A sediment cell is a section of the coast bordered by prominent headlands. Within these sections, the movement of sediment is almost contained and the flows of sediment should act in dynamic equilibrium
• Sediment budget is the use of data of inputs, outputs, stores and transfers to assess the gains and losses of sediment within a sediment cell
• Subaerial processes are the combination of mass movement and weathering that affects the coastal land above sea
• Wave quarrying is when air is trapped and compressed against a cliff, which causes rock fragments to break off the cliff overtime
• Slumping is when material moves down a slope with a rotation
• Landslides occur when rock and soil are saturated with water from rainfall or waves, and begins to fall in areas with a high gradient
• Rockfall is when rocks break away from the cliff face and fall downslope