Coasts

Traps in Coasts

• Coastal landform errors
  Erosional: cliffs, caves, arches, stacks, wave-cut platforms. Depositional: beaches, spits, bars, tombolos, lagoons.
• Credits a landform to the wrong agent
  Link each landform to its agent and process: ox-bow lake – river meanders; mushroom rock – wind abrasion; U-shaped valley – glacier; Lake Volta – a dam.
• Picks a closely related feature or term
  Learn related features as contrasting pairs: how each forms and what it looks like.
• Confuses wind-formed and other desert landforms
  Wind erosion (abrasion is strongest within about 1 m of the ground): mushroom rocks, zeugen (horizontal hard over soft rock), yardangs (vertical bands parallel to the wind), deflation hollows. Wind deposition: barchan (crescent, horns downwind), seif (long ridge parallel to the wind). Water in deserts: wadi (dry channel), playa (dry lake bed), bajada (merged alluvial fans), oasis (groundwater at surface).
• Confuses glacial and desert landforms
  Glacial erosion: cirque/corrie, arête, pyramidal peak, U-shaped valley, hanging valley. Glacial deposition: moraine, drumlin, esker, erratic. Desert (wind): barchan, seif, yardang, zeuge; desert (water): wadi, playa, bajada, inselberg.
• River profile errors
  Upper course: V-shaped valleys, waterfalls, rapids, interlocking spurs. Middle: meanders, wider valley. Lower: floodplains, levees, ox-bow lakes, deltas.