The East Anglia Region - Southern England - page 302

FIG 300. Looking southeastwards across the tidal channel that leads into Wells-next-the-
Sea (Fig. 294, c3 ), whose buildings cluster round the quay in the middle distance at the
right-hand edge of the photograph. (Copyright reserved Cambridge University Collection
of Air Photographs)
The photograph in Figure 302 was taken when the gravel barrier ridge was under
attack from a severe winter storm in February 1996. A light powdering of snow has
fallen on the brown winter landscape. The storm has sent waves over the top of the
barrier, flooding the low-lying marshes behind and creating small gravel fans from the
barrier material in this temporary lagoon.
An even more severe storm in 1953 caused loss of life in the village of Salthouse,
on the left side of the flooded marshes in Figure 302. This area has been chosen for an
engineering programme of 'managed retreat', where the present barrier will be left to
be modified by future storms, and a new barrier will be built further inland as a second
line of defence.
The presence of ripples as large as those shown in Figures 303 and 304 is evidence
of high flow speeds in the tidal channels, providing enough energy and turbulence to
form these remarkable and distinctive shapes. Walking over beaches, you will often
see much smaller ripples (20-30 cm between crests) that have been formed in the same
way, but under less rapid flows in minor channels. Similar - but more symmetrical -
small ripples can also be formed by the to-and-fro action of waves, as opposed to one-
directional flows.
FIG 301. Looking eastwards over the young coastal sediment from a point 1 km east of
the Wells tidal channel. (Copyright Norfolk Museums and Archaeology Service & Derek
A. Edwards)