IGCSE Geography / Coastal environments

Geology and the shape of the coast revision notes

Edexcel International GCSE Geography (4GE1), chapter 2: Coastal environments, specification point 2.1b, 2.S1. Part of the full course.

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A coast’s shape depends on both the type of rock and how the rock bands are arranged. Resistant and weak rocks erode at different rates, creating features such as headlands, bays and coves.

More lessons in Coastal environments

• Waves and coastal erosion
• Longshore drift and coastal deposition
• Weathering and mass movement on the coast
• Headlands, bays, cliffs and wave-cut platforms
• Caves, arches, stacks and stumps
• Beaches, spits and bars
• Vegetation, people and sea-level change
• Coastal ecosystems: coral reefs and mangroves
• Coastal ecosystems: sand dunes and salt marshes
• Inside one coastal ecosystem: the Sundarbans mangrove
• Coastal ecosystems under threat
• Case study: managing the mangrove
• Conflicts at the coast
• Why coasts flood
• Predicting and preventing coastal flooding
• Hard engineering at the coast
• Soft engineering and shoreline management plans
• Case study: coastal management in The Gambia
• Case study: coastal management in Sri Lanka
• Case study: coastal management in the UK
• Coastal fieldwork: collecting the data
• Coastal fieldwork: results, conclusions and evaluation