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Headlands and bays form on discordant coastlines, where bands of rock of alternating resistance run perpendicular to the coast. Bays form when weak (less resistant) rocks (such as sands and clays) are eroded, leaving bands of stronger (more resistant) rocks (such as chalk, limestone, and granite) forming a headland, or peninsula.
This list catalogues about 400 of the coastal landforms of the island including bays, estuaries, harbours, headlands, and many others. [3] [4] [5] Most offshore features such as islands, stags , and rocks are omitted but are presented at List of islands of Ireland. A list of beaches is available at List of beaches in Ireland.
The differing resistance to erosion leads to the formation of headlands and bays. A hard rock type such as granite is resistant to erosion and creates a promontory whilst a softer rock type such as the clays of Bagshot Beds is easily eroded creating a bay.
The more significant ones have been tagged with an *. Headlands around the British coast are most commonly named as 'point', 'ness' or 'head' though 'trwyn' (nose), 'penrhyn' (peninsula) and 'pen' (head) are common in Wales as is 'rubha' in western Scotland. Below is a list of headlands of the United Kingdom sorted by county.
The coastline of the United Kingdom is formed by a variety of natural features including islands, bays, headlands and peninsulas. It consists of the coastline of the island of Great Britain, the north-east coast of the island of Ireland, as well as many much smaller islands. Much of the coastline is accessible and quite varied in geography and ...
Bays also form through coastal erosion by rivers and glaciers. [7] A bay formed by a glacier is a fjord. Rias are created by rivers and are characterised by more gradual slopes. Deposits of softer rocks erode more rapidly, forming bays, while harder rocks erode less quickly, leaving headlands.
Collapsed Ordovician limestone bank showing coastal erosion.NW Osmussaar, Estonia.. Coastal geography is the study of the constantly changing region between the ocean and the land, incorporating both the physical geography (i.e. coastal geomorphology, climatology and oceanography) and the human geography (sociology and history) of the coast.
The western coastline is rugged, with many islands, peninsulas, headlands and bays, while the southern and northern coasts feature a smaller number of substantial sea inlets, such as Lough Foyle and Cork Harbour; no part of the land is more than around 110 km (68 mi) from the sea. It was administratively divided into 32 counties, gathered in 4 ...