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What is longshore drift GCSE?
Sediment is moved along the coastline in a process known as longshore drift. This results in a zigzag motion as sediment is transported along the coastline. This process means that over time beaches can change shape.
What is a longshore drift simple definition?
Longshore drift is simply the sediment moved by the longshore current. This current and sediment movement occur within the surf zone. The process is also known as littoral drift. Beach sand is also moved on such oblique wind days, due to the swash and backwash of water on the beach.
What is a longshore drift in geography?
Waves that hit the beach at an angle carry sand and gravel up the beach face at an angle. When the water washes back the sediment. is carried straight back down the beach face. Individual particles are moved along the beach in a zig zag pattern. This is called longshore drift.
What is longshore drift and how does it work?
Longshore (littoral) drift is the movement of material along the shore by wave action. It happens when waves approach the beach at an angle. The swash (waves moving up the beach) carries material up and along the beach.
Why is littoral drift important?
Longshore Drift (littoral drift) Longshore drift is a process responsible for moving significant amounts of sediment along the coast. The swash moves beach material along the beach and the backwash, under gravity, pulls the material back down the beach at right angles to the coastline.
What causes beach drift?
As wind-driven waves approach the shoreline at a slight angle, sediments are carried along the coast. Waves move sediments along the beach in a zigzag fashion (red arrows). The majority of sediment is transported in the surf zone. The movement of sand along the shoreline is known as beach drift.
What causes littoral drift?
Littoral drift or longshore sediment transport is the term used for the longshore transport of sediments (mainly sand), along the upper shoreface due to the action of breaking and longshore currents.
What is littoral drift?
Littoral drift refers to the movement of entrained sand grains in the direction of the longshore current. Littoral drift can be thought of as a river of sand moving parallel to the shore, moving sand from one coastal location to the next and so on until the sand is eventually lost to the littoral system.
What does beach drift mean?
noun. the drifting of sediments, especially marine sediments, in patterns parallel to the contours of a beach, due to the action of waves and currents.
What is the role of longshore drift on the coast?
Longshore Drift (littoral drift) Longshore drift is a process responsible for moving significant amounts of sediment along the coast. The swash moves beach material along the beach and the backwash, under gravity, pulls the material back down the beach at right angles to the coastline. What is Longshore Drift BBC Bitesize?
How are sand particles moved along the beach?
Individual particles are moved along the beach in a zig zag pattern. This is called longshore drift. Click to view larger and see the legend. Longshore drift diagram: The brown arrows show how waves can move an individual sand grain along a beach. Longshore drift causes spits to build up at the mouth of rivers or at the end of a point of land.
How does sediment move from sea to shore?
Sediment is moved along the coastline in a process known as longshore drift. The prevailing wind blows waves carrying sediment into the beach at an angle, the waves break on the shore and as the water runs back into the sea it carries the sediment back down the beach, perpendicular to the angle of the shoreline under the influence of gravity.
What do you call the movement of sand along the coast?
The transport of sand and pebbles along the coast is called longshore drift. The prevailing wind (the direction the wind ususally blows from) causes waves to approach the coast at an angle.