Pendower Beach, Cornwall

Pendower Beach, Cornwall

Pendower Beach forms a bay on the Southern coast of Cornwall and exhibits a number of different features of coastal landforms.

Pendower Beach, Cornwall

Pendower beach is in the bay between the two headlands of Nare Head and St Anthony’s Head.

The Bay contains the small settlements of Pendower and Carne as well as the picturesque fishing village of Portscatho.

Nare Head

Portscatho

Pendower Beach

From the picture below what kind of waves are breaking on the beach?

Pendower Beach, Cornwall

Geology of Pendower.

The main rocks of the area are of the Devonian period and are mainly mudstones that have been altered into weak slates, they are strongly inclined and to the east of the beach a fault divides the rocks between the Portscatho formation in the west and the Pendower formation to the east.

Pendower

Pendower Beach, Cornwall

Running along the back of the bay is a fine example of a raised beach. This was formed relatively recently within the last 2 million years and shows that the sea levels were once higher than at present.

This raised beach sits directly upon the Devonian rocks and is a classic example of unconformity, as the rocks that span the period in between (approx. 350 million years) have completely disappeared.

An unconformity is a buried erosion surface separating two rock masses or strata of different ages, indicating that sediment deposition was not continuous. In general, the older layer was exposed to erosion for an interval of time before deposition of the younger, but the term is used to describe any break in the sedimentary geologic record.

What is unconformity?

Pendower Beach, Cornwall.

A closer look at the cliffs shows that they are made up of weak materials.

Pendower Beach, Cornwall.

The rock has been undermined by waves at high tide leading to the formation of caves.

What processes are at work in this photo?

Pendower Beach, Cornwall

The Nare Head hotel is an 5* hotel on the cliffs on Pendower. Its owners are in a tricky situation as a result of recent cliff recession.

What are they doing to protect their property?

Pendower Beach, Cornwall.

Can you identify a significant depositional feature in this picture?

The distance between the beach and climatic climax is very short in this psammosere. Can you spot any other features from the photos?