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Coastal Landscapes

Estuarine coastlines, tidal flats and salt marshes

  • 2 things to know
  • Component 1 Section A

Overview

How tidal flats are built, salt pans on a tidal flat and creeks and rills on a tidal flat.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

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Key term

Define an estuary.

Key term

Why is an estuary a low energy environment?

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

  1. 1

    Define an estuary.

    Model answer

    An estuary is a partly enclosed coastal body of water where a river meets the sea. Fresh water and salt water mix within it and tidal influence extends upstream.

  2. 2

    Why is an estuary a low energy environment?

    Model answer

    The estuary is sheltered from open sea waves by its narrow, enclosed mouth. Fetch inside is short, so waves stay small and deposition dominates.

  3. 3

    Explain how tidal flats are built.

    Model answer

    Slack water at high and low tide allows suspended silt and clay to settle. Flocculation speeds the process, and repeated tides raise the surface into extensive mudflats.

  4. 4

    What are salt pans on a tidal flat?

    Model answer

    Salt pans are shallow depressions on the marsh surface that hold water after the tide falls. Evaporation concentrates the salt and leaves a crust that few plants tolerate.

  5. 5

    Describe creeks and rills on a tidal flat.

    Model answer

    Creeks are winding channels that drain the flat as the tide retreats. Rills are much smaller grooves, a few centimetres across, cut into the mud surface by the same draining water.

  6. 6

    Why do creeks meander across a salt marsh?

    Model answer

    Water flows slowly across an almost flat surface of soft, easily eroded mud. Small irregularities deflect the flow and the channel gradually develops sweeping bends.

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