9.1.4

Caves, Arches & Stacks

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Caves, Arches and Stacks

Rock with lots of cracks and joints is called soft rock. Headlands are made of resistant rocks with not many weaknesses. As headlands are eroded, these landforms can be created:

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Caves

  • There are cracks, joints, and weaknesses in rocks.
  • When cracks get wider (because of hydraulic action, abrasion or attrition), they can become large enough to create a cave.
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Arches

  • Caves can be eroded from one side of the rock through the other.
  • This creates an arch.
  • You can see right through an arch to the other side of the rock.
  • Durdle Door (Dorset), Bow Fiddle Rock (Scotland), and the Green Bridge of Wales (Pembrokeshire) are the 3 most famous arches in the UK.
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Stacks

  • When the top of an arch collapses because of gravity, a column called a stack is left behind.

Jump to other topics

1Geography Skills

2Geology of the UK

3Geography of the World

4Development

5Weather & Climate

6The World of Work

7Natural Resources

8Rivers

9Coasts

10Glaciers

11Tectonics

12Climate Change

13Global Population & Inequality

14Urbanisation

15Ecosystems

16Life in an Emerging Country

17Analysis of Africa

18Analysis of India

19Analysis of the Middle East

20Analysis of Bangladesh

21Analysis of Russia

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