Question

How do waves cause erosion and deposition?

Answer 1

The waves are one of the agents that manage to cause large scale erosion and deposition. The influence of the waves in the erosive and deposition processes are along the coastlines. The composition of the waves is simply water, of course the water has certain other chemicals in it, but very importantly it has a lot of power pushing it forward. The combination of the chemical composition and the power results in the waves to be able to cause both chemical and mechanical weathering along the coastlines. By doing so, they manage to break the rocks in smaller pieces, and then easily move the material away, thus cause erosion. The material, depending on its size and weight, can be moved only few meters right next to the beach, further into the water but still close to the coastline, or on the beach itself. As the material is transported and then left off at certain places, we have deposition, which in turn causes constant pilling up of new material, so over time new and interesting features are forming from the deposited material.