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Chapter 1 Introduction to the rock coasts of the world

Rock coasts are erosional environments which form as a result of the landward retreat of bedrock at the shoreline. Vertical faces plunging into deep water form imposing cliffs on many shorelines. Other cliff forms may be steeply sloping, but no strict definition delineates a slope from a cliff. In many instances the retreat of the cliff leads to the formation of a rock ledge, or shore platform, at or close to sea-level. The surface of these platforms may be either subhorizontal or slope gently in a seaward direction.

Rock coasts have been considered a neglected coastal landform (Trenhaile 1980, 2002; Stephenson 2000). The two seminal books on the topic (Trenhaile 1987; Sunamura 1992) were written over two decades ago and they still form a core academic source which people refer to when seeking to understand the morphology and dynamics of rocky coasts. In the past decade there has been growing interest in rock coasts; however, the subdiscipline is still in its infancy when compared with other landform systems such as sandy beaches, rivers or glaciers. Much of the recent research is focused on a case-study approach, with small teams of researchers using their local field sites to infer wider morphological models of platform or cliff systems.

A major driver for the growing interest in the rocky coast has been the advent of new and emerging technology that enables us to address problems not previously accessible and at scales not previously achievable. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries scientific investigation was observational and lacked quantitative data (Dana 1849; Bartrum 1926). Such qualitative descriptions of the rocky coast continued into the mid twentieth century, when quantitative data from field surveying became the norm. The use of techniques for measuring rock hardness, such as the Schmidt hammer, …