What is the longshore current driven by?
What is the longshore current driven by?
A longshore current is an ocean current that moves parallel to shore. It is caused by large swells sweeping into the shoreline at an angle and pushing water down the length of the beach in one direction.
How do longshore currents move?
Longshore currents are generated when a “train” of waves reach the coastline and release bursts of energy. The speed at which waves approach the shore depends on sea floor and shoreline features and the depth of the water.
How do longshore currents flow and what do they transport?
A longshore current is a current that flows parallel to the shore within the zone of breaking waves. Longshore currents develop when waves approach a beach at an angle (Figure 12.37). Longshore currents cause sediment transport called longshore drift.
What causes longshore current and longshore transport?
Oblique incoming wind squeezes water along the coast, and so generates a water current which moves parallel to the coast. 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.
What is longshore transportation?
Longshore transport refers to the cumulative movement of beach and nearshore sand parallel to the shore by the combined action of tides, wind, and waves and the shore-parallel currents produced by them.
What is the process of longshore drift?
Longshore drift is a geographical process that consists of the transportation of sediments (clay, silt, sand and shingle) along a coast at an angle to the shoreline, which is dependent on prevailing wind direction, swash and backwash.
What is longshore transport quizlet?
Longshore transport moves sediment upcoast or downcoast along the beach. Longshore transport can change direction depending on which direction the waves approach the beach. Longshore transport moves sediment in a zigzag path.
What is another name for longshore transport?
littoral drift
The combined effects of sediment transport within the surf zone by the longshore current and sediment movement along the beach by swash and backwash is known as longshore transport , or littoral drift .
What causes longshore current quizlet?
A longshore drift is a current moving parallel to the shore in the surf zone, caused by waves breaking at an angle with the shore.
What is a longshore current Why does it occur quizlet?
longshore current. -waves breaking offshore at an angle that cause water the move along the shore. -transport sediment along the coast.
What 2 processes contribute to longshore drift?
A longshore current develops where waves approach the shore at an angle, and swash and backwash on a beach move sediment along the shore. The combined effect of these two processes is sediment transport by longshore drift.
Is longshore drift a deposition or transportation?
The material is transported through suspension, traction, solution and saltation. Longshore drift provides a link between erosion, transportation and deposition. Longshore drift contributes towards the formation of a range of depositional landforms such as spits and onshore bars.
What is the coastal process that creates longshore drift quizlet?
How does longshore drift occur?
It happens when waves approach the beach at an angle. The swash (waves moving up the beach) carries material up and along the beach. The backwash (waves moving back down the beach) carries material back down the beach at right angles. This is the result of gravity.
What are the main factors that contribute to longshore transport?
Beach drift and the longshore current contribute to the longshore transport, which is the movement of sand and sediment parallel to the coastline.
What is the difference between longshore current and longshore transport?
The main difference between longshore current and longshore drift is that longshore currents are the ocean waves that travel parallel to the beach whereas longshore drift is the transportation of sediments along a coast, parallel to the shoreline.
What is longshore current quizlet?
longshore current. -waves breaking offshore at an angle that cause water the move along the shore.
What is longshore drift process?
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.