A raised beach, marine terrace, or perched coastline is an emergent coastal landform. Raised beaches and marine terraces are beaches or wave-cut platforms raised above the shore line by a relative fall in the sea level.
Around the world, a combination of tectonic coastal uplift and Quaternary sea-level fluctuations has resulted in the formation of marine terrace sequences, most of which were formed during separate interglacial highstands that can be correlated to Marine Oxygen Isotopic Stages (MIS) (for example, Johnson and Libbey (1997).
A marine terrace commonly retains a shoreline angle or inner edge, the slope inflection between the marine abrasion platform and the associated paleo sea-cliff. The shoreline angle represents the maximum shoreline of a transgression and therefore a paleo sea level.
Read more about Raised Beach: Origin, Tectonical and Or Eustatical Use of Marine Terrace Sequence, Other Coastal Quaternary Morphologies Registering Uplift, World Wide Occurrence
Famous quotes containing the words raised and/or beach:
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—Elizabeth I (1533–1603)
“When the inhabitants of some sequestered island first descry the “big canoe” of the European rolling through the blue waters towards their shores, they rush down to the beach in crowds, and with open arms stand ready to embrace the strangers. Fatal embrace! They fold to their bosoms the vipers whose sting is destined to poison all their joys; and the instinctive feeling of love within their breasts is soon converted into the bitterest hate.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)