Chapter 1: The Coastal Area
1.1 The Coastal profile (2)
| European Coasts - An Introductory Survey Chapter 1: The Coastal Area 1.1 The Coastal profile (2) |
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| fig. 8: Aerial view of a sandy beach an dunes. The dune erosion is the result of a severe storm surge; Kempen, Germany | fig. 9: Sandy beach and dunes protected with marram grass, The Netherlands | fig. 10: Unique sort of beach of sand, algae and rocks. The sand particles here are glued together; Le Bombarde, Alghero, Sardinia, Italy |
Classification of beach material
Sediments are usually classified from coarse to fine as pebbles and gravel, sand, silt and clay. The sediment particle size for these classes are: pebbles and gravel larger than 2 mm; sand from 0.06
mm to 2 mm; silt from 0.004 mm to 0.06 mm and clay smaller than 0.004 mm.
Sandy beach
Sand at the beach originates mostly from inland rock formations. It is eroded and transported by rivers and coastal currents. In northern Europe, glaciers may also have delivered material from inland during the Ice
Ages. Coasts with fine sands can result in very gently sloping wide beaches, with slopes as low as 1:100 or even flatter.
Dunes are formed at the landward side of a beach by wind blowing from offshore. Dunes form a major natural protection of the land against attacks from the sea.
A profile with characteristics typical for a sandy beach is shown in Fig. 5. Several examples of European sandy beaches are presented in Fig. 6 through Fig. 10.
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| This page is from the book "European Coasts", produced in the framework of the Erasmus project under EC contract ICP 92-G-2013 and placed on the Internet in the framework of the PIANC-MarCom initiative on Education. |