Beaches are the most common of the four depositional features. They are created by deposited material from breaking waves; the constructive action is mainly effected by the swash. The swash is the turbulent mass of water, which flows up the beach following the breaking of a wave. The swash contains much of the suspended sediment, and this sediment is then deposited upon the beach.
In the area that I have studied there are many sandy beaches and two good examples of this are Dunraven Bay, and Traeth Mawr Beach. Both of these beaches have headland on either side, and therefore can be attributed to refraction. The erosion of these headlands reduces the energy of the approaching waves, which also supplies a great amount of eroded material. This then affects the energy of the wave as they approach the beach and as a result have a lower velocity and this leads to the deposition of their load on the beach.
There are also many storm beaches found along this area, for example at Ogmore and Tresilian Bay. Storm beaches are created during storms when there are high-energy waves. Large material is thrown high up onto the beach creating berms. This leads to grading, with the largest boulders at the furthest point from the sea, and the finer material closer. This is caused by the strong swash carrying the large rocks further however there is not enough energy to bring them back as the backwash is weaker due to the percolation between the large rocks. The berms will remain until another storm event of the same magnitude occurs which will add to them or remove them. Periods of relative stability will allow the berms to remain as a feature of the storm beach, however they are not ephemeral.
Cross section through a storm beach
A spit is a bank of sand or shingle projecting form the shoreline into the sea, or as in the area I have studied, across the mouth of a river estuary, they develop as a result of long-shore drift of beach material. When a spit connects an island to the mainland they are called tombolos.
In the area I have studied along the stretch of coastline near Llantwit Major a spit has been created which is now known as Col-Huw Point. It has been created by the material from the erosion of the cliffs between Nash Point and St. Donats Bay.
The constant supply of material in conjunction with low energy, caused by refraction around the headlands to the west, has resulted in the creation of the spit at Col-Huw Point. The process of long-shore drift is carrying the material from the west, however there may be further material added to the spit from the River Thaw (Afon Col-Huw), which emerges here. These are not the only contributors; the final contributor to the accumulation of material at the spit is Breaksea Point to the East. At Breaksea Point the coastline changes direction and long-shore drift is unable to continue, this results in the formation of tidal currents moving from the east to the west and carrying more material with them, this material is then also deposited at Col-Huw Point.
As I have shown above, there are many landforms produced as a result of coastal deposition and from the examples given you can see that it plays a great role in the area I have studied.