Costal Zone

Question	Answer
The fetch	The area of water on the sea that wind blows over. The bigger the fetch, the more powerful the wave.
Swash	The movement of waves up the beach.
Backwash	The movement of waves back down the beach.
Erosion	When material is broken down and the eroded material is moved away.
Hydraulic Action	When waves push water in to cracks in rocks and trapped air (under pressure) forces the cracks further apart.
Abrasion	When waves hurl fragments of rock at a cliff face.
Attrition	When rocks collide and break up into small pieces.
Solution (erosion)	Rocks are dissolved by sea water.
Weathering	When rock is broken down (but isn't moved away).
Freeze-thaw Weathering	When water gets into cracks in rocks freezes, expands and weaken the rocks. When this happenes repeatedly it breaks rocks up into smaller pieces.
Chemical weathering	When weak acids in rain water dissolve rocks.
Biological weathering	When animals and plants break up rocks into smaller pieces by burrowing into them or through the growth of their roots.
Traction	Heavy particles rolled along the seabed.
Solution (transport)	The transport of dissolved rock within sea water.
Saltation	A hopping movement of pepples along the seabed.
Suspension	Lighter particles are carried (suspended) within the water.

Resource summary

	Created by hollykrk over 10 years ago