Tobias’ rocky landform paragraphs

Intro 
Around the world, there are many cliffs and caves, and natural
architecture is shaped in a variety of forms, but to create such things, what kind
of factors must be involved? As such, in this essay, I will assess the relative
importance of marine erosion and subaerial processes in shaping rocky coastline
landforms.
First, of, we start with headlands and bays. The most important factor for
headlands & bays to form is geology & the presence of a discordant coastline,
where there are alternating bands of more & less resistant rock perpendicular to
the coastline. This occurs at the Isle of Purbeck where chalk or limestone forms
the more resistant bands & clays & soft sands form less resistant bands in
between. This then causes a differential rate of erosion along the coastline due to
marine erosion processes, mainly hydraulic action (the force of air pushed into
cracks breaking them apart), cavitation, (bubbles of air in waves exploding in
cracks), wave pounding, (the sheer force of waves crashing against headlands &
abrasion, (rocks being thrown against headlands by wave action.) The clays &
sands are eroded rapidly to form bays, e.g. Swanage Bay, while the harder chalk &
limestone erode slower & create headlands, e.g. ‘the Foreland’ & ‘Peveril Point.
Once formed the headlands cause wave refraction, where high energy waves are
concentrated at the headlands, as the seabed is shallower here, & low
constructive energy waves deposit material into bays. Sub-aerial processes will
affect the rate of weathering which will play a part in how fast rock can be
eroded. In this area, freeze-thaw & high levels of precipitation will cause
moderately fast weathering allowing marine erosion to attack more cracks &
fractures in the headlands. Overall, in terms of relative important geology and
marine erosion processes, including the presence of refraction are the first &
second most important factors, with sub-aerial processes ranked after these.  
Then come the cliffs and wave-cut platforms, the most important
factor for them to form is the type of rocks distributed on the cliffs (usually with
less resistance on top of the more resistant ones ), then comes the wave
types/processes, followed by that are sub-aerial processes ( weathering & mass
movement ) and human influence with the presences of beach at the bay. An
example of this occurs at the Isle of Purbeck, which lies on the Dorset Coast and is
a part of the ‘Jurassic Coast’ that extends from Ex mouth in East Devon to Old
Harry Rocks in Purbeck. To begin with, the Isle of Purbeck consists of mostly chalk
and limestone, which makes it easier for marine erosion to break down the less
resistant rocks by saturating the bottom of the cliff, breaking the section down
with destructive waves, creating a wave-cut platform beneath. Then comes sub-
aerial weathering process like vegetation roots and freeze-thaw occurring
regularly on the upper part, which results in rockfall and end up with the upper
part falling vertically down, forcing the cliffs to retreat. Other factors like the
presence of beaches or human influence can either slow down the process or
speed it up. In this case, with the presence of beaches, when the waves crash and
erode the rock, the beach will act as a barrier that reduces or stops the effect. But
in areas that have regular appearances of destructive waves, it might be hard the
existence a beach as there is no regular deposition to match up with the erosion
rate. That can be related to human influence as we can either build up barriers to
stop the erosion of beaches and cliffs: “groins, or construct beaches by taking
sand from other places,…” or accelerate the process of cliff erosion by building
construction on cliffs or near them that causes pressure and shaken the rock
which makes it fall down.
 Following them are caves, arches, and stacks. This requires them to
be the type of rocks that construct the headlands where they originate from,
mixing with the processes of marine erosions with weathering, and atlas, mass
movements. This can also be seen happening at the Isle of Purbeck, as the
headland at that place was made with chalk and limestone, making it more
vulnerable to marine erosion that results in cracks or rock falls when the waves
pound in or hydraulic actions occur. With that, it gets worst when headland is
attacked on both sides due to wave refraction from the shore, mixing with the
weathering like salt crystallization, freeze-thaw, and vegetation roots, … Those
processes will end up creating cracks on the bottom of the headline, which later
enlarges and turns into caves and arches. From that point, the cracks grow larger
and rockfall happens, turning into a cave. Following is more erosion coming from
marine erosion and weathering, cutting through the cave, and turning it into an
arch. With the arch enlarging, it finally cuts up to a point where gravity and
weathering will force the roof of the arch to fall, separating what used to be an
arch into a cliff and a column of stone being isolated, which is called a stack.
Nowadays, human influence might create a bigger impact than before
(construction creates impact, building buildings puts pressure on cliffs, etc. ), but
the main factor which makes landforms the way they still remain is rock types and
marine erosion. Thus, this makes me conclude that rock types and marine erosion
are the most important factors in the processes of shaping the landform.