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A wave-cut platform, shore platform, coastal bench, or wave-cut cliff is the narrow flat area often found at the base of a sea cliff or along the shoreline of a lake, bay, or sea that was created by erosion. Wave-cut platforms are often most obvious at low tide when they become visible as huge areas of flat rock.
On the headland itself is evidence of erosional features, wave cut notch and a wave-cut platform. On St Bees Beach to the south to lessen the effects of longshore drift, a row of nine groynes have been put in place. Further south, St Bees Beach is backed by small mud cliffs which are a common place to study the glacial moraines that formed them.
A marine terrace represents the former shoreline of a sea or ocean. It can be formed by marine abrasion or erosion of materials comprising the shoreline (marine-cut terraces or wave-cut platforms); the accumulations of sediments in the shallow-water to slightly emerged coastal environments (marine-built terraces or raised beach); or the bioconstruction by coral reefs and accumulation of reef ...
Furthermore, shore platforms are formed by denudation and marine-built terraces arise from accumulations of materials removed by shore erosion. [2] Thus, a marine terrace can be formed by both erosion and accumulation. However, there is an ongoing debate about the roles of wave erosion and weathering in the formation of shore platforms. [10]
Subsequent wave erosion along uplifted portions of the coastline produces an inset wave cut platform and terrace riser below the abandoned marine terrace surface that formed initially at sea level. Uplift can therefore lead to a sequence of marine terraces at a few distinct elevations along the coast.
A wave-cut platform forms after erosion and retreat of a sea cliff has been occurring for a long time. Gently sloping wave-cut platforms develop early on in the first stages of cliff retreat. Later, the length of the platform decreases because the waves lose their energy as they break further offshore. [23] [clarification needed]
Abrasion platforms are shore platforms where wave action abrasion is a prominent process. If it is currently being fashioned, it will be exposed only at low tide, but there is a possibility that the wave-cut platform will be hidden sporadically by a mantle of beach shingle (the abrading agent).
On a cliffed coast made up of material which is only fairly or even hardly resistant to erosion no wave-cut platform but a beach is formed in front of the sea cliff. If waves carve notches at a narrow point on both sides of a promontory on the rocky cliffed coast, a natural arch may be formed. [ 4 ]