Spurn Head What is this and what might have caused it?

TOPS Top 10 Geography in conjunction with www.sln.org.uk/geography

Spurn Head

What is this and what might have caused it?


Here is one clue


Here is another clue


Spurn Head• is located on the

Humber Estuary on the East Yorkshire Coast.

• It has a classical shape with a hooked end.

• How long and how wide?

• Why doesn’t it grow over the estuary?

• How did it come to be?


Erosion of Boulder Clay on the Holderness section of the coast


When is and isn’t it eroding?


Sediment in the sea


Longshore drift• Longshore drift is the

movement of material along the beach in a zig zag pattern.

• The swash approaches at an angle to the beach pushing the sediment with it.

• The backwash pulled by gravity drags the beach material back into the sea where the process repeats.


Evidence from groynes


Creation of Spurn Head• For a spit to be

created there needs to be

• longshore drift occurring plus;

• there needs to be shallow and sheltered water and

• lastly a change in the shape in the coast line


Has it always been a spit?

• Spurn Head is cyclic which means that it goes through a 250 years of creation and destruction.

• But people have built homes along the coast which means it will need protection from erosion.


How do we protect?

• Spurn head is cyclic which means that it goes through a 250 years of creation and destruction.

• But people have built homes along the coast which means it will need protection from erosion.


How do we protect?• This is also a form of

protection it is a concrete wall which should stop wave damage but is it effective?

• ‘Hard’ approaches


How do we protect?• What other

protection could be used?

• ‘Softer’ approaches


Protect one place

erode another


SummaryThe main features of deposition are is a very long spit the most noticeable is Spurn Head on the Holderness Coast.


Make a sketch

• Draw a location and sketch map of Spurn Head and explain how it was formed - a storyboard is a good way of doing it.


More at• http://www.sln.org.uk/geography/enquiry/we5.htm • http://www.herb.hull.ac.uk/erosion/index.htm• http://atschool.eduweb.co.uk/nelthorp/room8/intra/

geograph/ks3/coasts/coasts.htm• http://atschool.eduweb.co.uk/nelthorp/room8/intra/

geograph/humberside/index.htm• http://www.pml.ac.uk/lois/Education/case.htm • http://www.fortunecity.com/greenfield/ecolodge/25/

index.html

• Thanks to Francine Wilson Jones, Wilnecote High School

Spurn Head What is this and what might have caused it?

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