A rampart is a band of rock at the seaward edge of a wave-cut platform that lies higher than the platform itself (Fig. 1). Ramparts are morphologically placed lines of in situ rock that are more resistant to marine erosion because their position on the seaward edge of the platform exposes them to greater saturation (Wentworth, 1938), thereby raising the level of saturation and consequently the level at which the overlying rock is removed. For the same reason, ramparts remain more resistant to the secondary processes that denude the backing lower platform. Gill (1971) also attributes their resistance to pedologic mobilization of iron in the original surface, resulting in the formation of a more resistant surface band of which the ramparts are the remnants of the seaward edge. Gill also found ramparts related to massive rock, free of jointing, bedding, and the like, and multiple ramparts related to variations in rock hardness.
View seaward across horizontal wave-cut platform,...
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References
Gill, E. D., 1971. Ramparts on shore platforms, Pacific Geology 4, 121–133.
Wentworth, C. K., 1938. Marine bench-forming processes: Water-level weathering, Jour. Geomorph. 1, 5–32.
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© 1982 Hutchinson Ross Publishing Company
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Short, A.D. (1982). Ramparts . In: Beaches and Coastal Geology. Encyclopedia of Earth Sciences Series. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/0-387-30843-1_357
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/0-387-30843-1_357
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