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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 ...
Wave-cut platform at Southerndown, South Wales, UK. 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 ...
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.
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).
Also, they include benches in the form of narrow strath terraces (st), fill terraces (ft), and cut terraces (ct) underlain by fluvial sediments. In geomorphology , geography and geology , a bench or benchland is a long, relatively narrow strip of relatively level or gently inclined land bounded by distinctly steeper slopes above and below it.
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]
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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 ]