Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
TABLE 7.8
Area of Major and Some Minor Coastal Plains of the World a
Geographic Coastal Plain Name
Area (km 2 ; Exclusive of Continental
Shelf and Landward Portions
of Major Drainage Basins)
Africa
Egyptian-North African
370,000
(Egypt, Libya, Tunisia)
Niger
90,000
Mauritania, Spanish Sahara
300,000
Mozambique
130,000
Somali
110,000
Asia
Bengal, Pakistan-India
220,000
Coromandel-Colconda, India
40,000
Irrawaddy, Burma
40,000
Kanto plain, Japan
5,000
Karachi, Pakistan-India
370,000
Malabar-Konkan, India
25,000
Mekong. Vietnam-Cambodia
100,000
Ob-Khatanga-Lena, U.S.S.R.
800,000
Persia, Saudi Arabia, Iraq
325,000
Sumatra, Indonesia
160,000
Yellow-Yangtze plains, China
125,000
Australia
Nullarbor
120,000
Europe
Aquitaine, France
25,000
Baltic, Poland
6,000
Flandrian and Netherlands (Belgium, Holland, Germany)
150,000
Po, Italy
25,000
North America
Arctic, U.S.-Canada
130,000
Atlantic and Gulf Coastal Plain
940,000
Costa de Mosquitas, Nicaragua-Honduras
28,000
Los Angeles, U.S.
21,000
Yucatan-Tabasco-Tampeco, Mexico
125,000
South America
Amazon, Brazil
245,000
Buenos Aires, Uruguay
270,000
Orinoco-Guianan (Venezuela, Guyana, Surinam, French Guiana)
120,000
a
From Colquhoun, D.J., Encyclopedia of Geomorphology , R.W. Fairbridge, Ed., Dowden, Hutchimson & Ross Publ.,
Stroudsburg, PA, 1968, pp. 144-149. With permission.
As the land emerged from the sea, stream erosion proceeded along the strike of
the exposed beds, eventually forming a series of low, parallel ridges of low relief, or cues-
tas. Emergence continued at a slow, barely perceptible rate for some time, then acceler-
ated for a relatively short time during which wave action cut terraces along the plain (see
Section 7.4.3) . In modern times, the characteristics of a marine depositional coast have
developed.
Stratigraphy
The sediments of the New Jersey coastal plain reach thicknesses greater than 6000 ft
beneath the shoreline. The beds dip seaward, and uplift and erosion have exposed the
 
 
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