Chris James |

Describe and explain how attached beaches vary in both plan and profile.

A beach is a   along the  of a body of water. It usually consists of loose particles which are often composed of , such as , , , , or . The particles of which the beach is composed can sometimes instead have biological origins, such as  or  fragments. Beaches often occur along coastal areas, where  or  action  and reworks sediments. Although the  is most commonly associated with the word "beach", beaches are not only found by the sea or ocean: beaches also occur at the margin of the land along  and  where sediments are reworked or deposited. A profile of a beach is a cross section of the landform showing the shape, length, steepness and features. A plan of a beach is a bird’s eye view  which shows it’s shape in relation to surrounding features.

Beach can come in many shapes and sizes therefore the profile will change in width, gradient and show different features such as ridges, and storm beaches. As well as changing from beach to beach the profile can change at different points along the same beach. From looking at beach profiles you can tell that width and gradient tend to be linked. Wide beaches tend t be gently sloping, whereas narrow beaches tend to be steep. You can also link gradient and therefore width with sediment size.

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Sandy beaches tend to be wide with gentle profiles, such as Swansea Bay which is 500m wide and has a gradient of 1:50. This is due to the low permeability of the sand as the fine particles leave little space for the water to drain through. This means that only a little of the swash is lost through the sand and low frictional loss of energy over fine material resulting in material is distributed up and down the beach evenly. Off shore bars develop on sandy beaches encouraging the wave to break earlier reducing swash energy and the sand absorbs ...

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