Did you watch Coast tonight?

[Tigerhair]

With the giant holders for liquid natural gas at Milford Haven! Jeez!

[Silver Ether]

I am confused by the way the sand thats being dredged and is never replaced ... so what is happening to teh cliffs etc that are being eroded by the sea ??? or am I just thick ... can someone explain please ...

[Tigerhair]

Actually, the same thought crossed my mind.... Perhaps it's not at the same rate, or something. Enlightenment required, I feel.

[kimbobill]

Is it? That there is only so much sandstone in Britain! Is that where sand come from?
The beach on our coast is made up with a lot of ground down shells mixed in!

If they are using sand from the sea is that why on new buildings you see white marks over the brickwork? the salt escaping perhaps

[Cheezy]

Coastal errosion and deposition occurs all the time, and changes all the time. Sometimes man effects where it occurs by putting up defences. All it does (usually) is give another place the problem further down.

On the E coast you have areas of massive errosion around Flamborough and Filey.
Most of this material was deposited much further south and built up the famous and beautiful Spurn Head in the Humber.

Unfortuanetly due to mans attempts to prevent the coastal errosion further up the coast, has resulted there is no longer a net gain of material, and Spurn Head is now getting smaller.

Don't forget most of the deposition products are from rivers into the sea.
When you consider the Scottish mountains are actually older then the Himalaya's, and would have at sometime in the past millennia have been close to the same size. And all the is left following glaciation and errosion are the Cullins famed for being just over 3000 ft!
All that rock has to go somewhere.
It's even more staggering to think that the Scottish highland were once part of what is now Canada. THey are made of exactly the same rock.A part due to platetectonics was seperated and moved down to "crash" into England, and formed even bigger mountains.The lowlands of Scotland are basically "sea bed sludge" pushed up when the highlands "crashed" into England. And the Caladonian canal is the visible reminder of the join.

The "salts" coming out of bricks are a mix of soluble mineral salts, ie not just sodium chloride. And are natural componets from the brick and morter.

I knew that Geology might come in useful one day!

[Sassinak]

I can remember seeing a TV programme many years ago about Spurn Head, it showed sped up animation of its constant forming, moving, disappearing and reforming over the centuries. But I suppose man's intervention will have disrupted that process.

[Silver Ether]

So I assume that where ever the sand was coming from to create ... sorry cannot remember the name of the bank that was being dredged the bank ... something must have changed possibly further up the coast as the girl said that it would never be replaced ...

[mybarnconversion]

With the giant holders for liquid natural gas at Milford Haven! Jeez!

A thorny issue in South Wales, to some, the pipeline is a mini-natural disaster. I’ve droned on about it on my blog recently ~ Gas Pipeline Woes if you're interested

I’m not sure that I’m happy with the handling of it on Coast – To me, a general tone of admiration tempered by a short questioning comment by the presenter at the end of the piece. But then I can't claim to be unbiased.

Putting Coast to one sire - This is a big issue that should have generally received greater consideration, but seems to have been pretty well ‘buried’. My feeling now is that it may well be held up as an engineering triumph whilst we ignore the wider ecological, environmental and sustainability implications.

[Cheezy]

So I assume that where ever the sand was coming from to create ... sorry cannot remember the name of the bank that was being dredged the bank ... something must have changed possibly further up the coast as the girl said that it would never be replaced ...

I didn't see the programme (watching glasto on BBC3), will catch it next Sat.

Sand may have been deposited by glacial moraine,river deposition,sea deposition,even as sand dunes during the jurassic period so depends.
If it was glacial then unless global warming has the the effect to turn off the Atlantic Convayor (as some predict), thus taking away the warming effect of the sea, and plunging us back into an ice age it is unlikely to be replaced.

[Millymollymandy]

I saw it and was wondering all that too - I naively thought that sand was forming all the time by the effect of waves on rock/stone/pebbles..... oh dear.

What did you think of the tarmac beach?

[Silver Ether]

What did you think of the tarmac beach?

insane