As the sea cliff retreats landward, continued wave abrasion forms as abrasion

platform. This sloping rock floor continues to be eroded and widened by abrasion
beneath the breakers. If a beach is present, it is little more than a thin layer of
gravel and cobblestones.
Retreat of a coastline may take place so rapidly that a stream emptying into the
sea is unable to lower is channel fast enough to maintain a sea-level junction. The
result is a hanging valley, in which the stream channel ends abruptly near the top of
the cliff and the valley cross-profile is abruptly truncated (Figure 19,9) where
bedrock is weak the marine cliff may unstable . yielding occurs spontaneously and
mass movements take the form of earthflows and slumb blocks (Figure 19.9)
Sea cliff are features of spectacular beauty as well as habitats for many forms of
life, including sea mammals and shore birds. Only in resent years has the need to
preserve these cliffed coasts I their natural state been appreciated fully, Althought
the strength of these rocky features resists Man-made alterations, the cliff line is
vulnerable to heavy use for summer homes, motels, and restaurants. Intensive use
not only destroys the pristine scenery, but also adds pollution.

Beaches
Sediment enters the shore zone of breaking waves from a number of possible
sources. Sediment may be derived directly from a marine cliff or scarp that is being
actively eroded. Sediment entering the ocean or a lake from the mouth of a steram
is another major source of supply. Strom waves may scours the offshore zone,
dragging sand and gravel landward to reach the braker zone.
Whatever the origin of the sediment, it is shapped by swash and backwash into a
wedge shaped sediment the posit, familiar to everyone as a beach. sediment
composing beaches ranges from fine sand to cobblastones several centimeters in
diameter. Within a given stretch of beach, the sediment is usually quite well sorted
into a particular size grade. Thus there are beaches of fine sand, of coarse sand, of
gravel, or of cobbles. As a rule, beaches composed of fine send are broad and have
a very gentle seaward slope, whereas beaches of coarse sand or gravel are quite
steep (Figure 19.10). beaches formed of cobblestones are very steep and show a
high crest, or ridge form.

Littoral Drift
In a idealized situation in which waves approach a straight shoreline, their crests
parallel with that line, a gives wave breakes at the same instants at all points and
the swash rides up the beach at right angels to the shoreline. The backwash returns

along the same line. Consequently, particles move up and down the beach slope
along a fixed line.
Along most shorelines most of the time, however, waves approach the coast at an
oblique angle, as shown in Figure 19.13. As these waves travel toward a shoreline
over a gently shoaling ocean botton, they undergo a gradual decrease in velocity of
forward travel, As a result, the wave crests become surved in plan and tend to
become more nearly parallel with the shoreline. This wave-bending phenomenon is
called wave refraction.
Despite some refraction, however, the wave crest arrives in the breaker zone with
an oblique approach to the shoreline. The swash of the breaker then rides obliquely
up the foreshore, as shown in Figure 19.14.As a result the sand, pebbles, and
cobbles are moved obliquely up the slope. After the swash has spent its energy, the
backwash flows down the slope of the beach, being controlled by the pull of gravity,
which moves it in the most direct downhill direction. Now the particles are dragged
directly seaward and come to rest at positions to one side of the starting points.
Because wave fronts approach consistenly from the same direction on a particular
day, this movement is repeated many times. Invidual rock particles thus travel a
considerable distance along the shore. Multiplied many thousands of times to
include the numberless particles of the beach, this form of mass transport, called
beach drift, is a major process in shoreline development.
Reraly is beach drift not taking place , in one direction or the other,along a
marine shoreline . usually , a given stretch of shoreline is subjected to a domain
direction of wave approach throughout a given season of the year , or throughout
the entire year. Consequently , beach drift can be assigned a single direction of net
transport as the seasonal or yearly average.