Coastal geomorphology coursework on the North Norfolk coast - page 5
Keywords: This is a coursework on the coasts of Cley and Overstrand in the North Norfolk coast
By Northcott on 26/09/2008
Level: VGCSE
Page Number: 5 of 8 pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Overstrand is one of the many examples of battling against the sea. The main processes that must be stopped are marine activity, land, slope processes and weathering. At Overstrand the main sea defences are sea walls (with steps), zigzag groynes, revetments, riprap and gabions. All of these are ways in which wave energy is reduced and it stops as much erosion as possible.
Revetments (shown in picture) are wooden constructions that reduce wave energy and are much cheaper than zigzag groynes. They are mainly in use when it is high tides. These were in use all the way along the beach the first defence that the sea met.
Zigzag Groynes are structures that stop and reduce longshore drift and manage to keep some of the beach in between each groyne and so reduce erosion. These are much more expensive costing up to £5000 a groyne! These were every 100m along the beach in an attempt to stop longshore drift.
Gabions are small groups of rocks that are bounded together by steel cages. These coastal defences are one of the cheaper options. These were on top of the sea wall and helped the cliffs against weathering and slope processes.
Drainage is also a key factor that desperately tries to reduce some of the water held by the clay. This tries to reduce the amount of rotational slumping (see above) and a vital process. It is key that this is there otherwise the cliffs fill up with water and the slumping will occur more often and cause more problems.
Cley
The landforms at Cley are very different when compared to Overstrand. At Cley it is a very heavily covered Pebble Beach, with berms at very 7-10m or so. Recently before we were there had been a storm that had created another storm berm further up the beach. We used the transects to specify in what area we would take pebble sizes from and then made several measurements of pebbles every 6m going up the beach. We made measurement in six different places these averages of the pebbles sizes were:
Site 1 2 3 4 5 6
Average 20 mm 11 mm 27 mm 20 mm 32 mm 24 mm
The sites that are referred to in the table are how away from the sea they are and every site is progressively 6 metres away from each other. The reason that the 5th site had the largest pebble size is because of the storm that has recently occurred. Over the back
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