Formation of coastline features by large-scale instabilities induced by high-angle waves

Andrew Ashton (), A. Brad Murray and Olivier Arnoult
Additional contact information
A. Brad Murray: Duke University, Box 90227
Olivier Arnoult: École Normale Supérieure

Nature, 2001, vol. 414, issue 6861, 296-300

Abstract: Abstract Alongshore sediment transport that is driven by waves is generally assumed to smooth a coastline. This assumption is valid for small angles between the wave crest lines and the shore, as has been demonstrated in shoreline models1. But when the angle between the waves and the shoreline is sufficiently large, small perturbations to a straight shoreline will grow2,3. Here we use a numerical model to investigate the implications of this instability mechanism for large-scale morphology over long timescales. Our simulations show growth of coastline perturbations that interact with each other to produce large-scale features that resemble various kinds of natural landforms, including the capes and cuspate forelands observed along the Carolina coast of southeastern North America. Wind and wave data from this area support our hypothesis that such an instability mechanism could be responsible for the formation of shoreline features at spatial scales up to hundreds of kilometres and temporal scales up to millennia.

Date: 2001
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/35104541 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:nature:v:414:y:2001:i:6861:d:10.1038_35104541

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/

DOI: 10.1038/35104541

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

More articles in Nature from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().