Landscapes and Physical Processes

The shape of the UK

The UK has some of the most varied landscapes for its size anywhere in the world, and the reason is rock. The north and west (the Scottish Highlands, the Lake District, Snowdonia) are built of older, harder rocks that resist wearing away, so they stand up as uplands with steep valleys, waterfalls and thin soils. The south and east are built of younger, softer rocks such as chalk and clay, so they form lowlands of gentle hills, wide river valleys and floodplains. Two agents do most of the shaping: rivers and the sea. Both work in the same three ways. They ERODE (wear rock away), they TRANSPORT (carry the loose material) and they DEPOSIT (drop it again when the energy runs out). This module surveys those processes and the landforms they build, on rivers such as the Tees and the Severn and on coasts such as Dorset and Holderness.

Erosion and transport words

These are the named processes the specification expects you to use. Learn what each acts on.

Upland against lowland Britain

A line from the Tees estuary in the north east to the Exe estuary in the south west roughly divides the two kinds of UK landscape.

Explain a landform in four moves

When an exam question asks you to explain how a landform was formed, the mark scheme rewards a chain of cause and effect, not a description of what it looks like. Use four moves. First, name the processes at work and say what each one acts on. Second, put the processes in the order they happen. Third, link each stage to the next with words such as this means, so that, and over time. Fourth, name a real place where the landform can be seen. A weak answer says what the feature is; a strong answer walks the examiner from bare rock to finished landform, step by step, with a named example at the end.

Match the erosion process to its action

Predict the Dorset coastline

Near Swanage in Dorset, bands of hard chalk and limestone alternate with bands of softer clay, and the bands meet the sea end on. Which coastline would you predict the sea has carved?

• Headlands of hard rock jutting out, with bays worn back into the softer clay
• A perfectly straight coast, because the sea attacks every rock at the same rate
• Bays cut into the hard rock, with the clay left standing out as headlands
• A row of spits, because alternating rock always builds deposition landforms

Built by deposition

Select the TWO coastal landforms that are BUILT UP by deposition rather than worn out by erosion.

• A beach
• A spit
• A stack
• A wave-cut platform

Count the erosional features

A field sketch of a chalk headland labels 2 caves, 1 arch and 3 stacks (the sketch also shows a sandy beach in the bay beside it, but that is a deposition feature). Count how many features on the sketch were made by erosion.

Order the spit story

Spurn Head on the Holderness coast is a spit. Put the stages of its formation in the order they happen.

• Waves driven by the prevailing wind reach the beach at an angle
• The swash carries sand and shingle up the beach at that angle
• The backwash drags the material straight back down under gravity
• Repeated waves move the material along the coast in a zig-zag
• Where the coast turns into the estuary the material is deposited in a ridge

Complete the landscape facts

Upland areas such as the Lake District are found mainly in the north and _____ of the UK, where the rocks are older and harder. A river carries fine, light material in _____, while large boulders are rolled along the bed by _____. High Force on the River Tees is a _____ where a hard band of rock lies over softer rock. Old Harry Rocks in Dorset are chalk _____ left standing after arches collapsed.

Landscape survival run

Five quick questions on processes and landforms. Three lives. Lose them all and the run restarts.

Spot the true landscape facts

Tap the TWO statements that are true.

• Attrition makes carried pebbles smaller and rounder but does not wear the cliff itself
• The lowland south and east of the UK is built mostly of younger, softer rocks
• A spit is carved out of a headland by hydraulic action
• Uplands such as Snowdonia form where the rock is soft and erodes quickly

Read the landscape

A geographer describes what they can see. Choose the process or landform that best explains each description.

• At the foot of a chalk cliff the pebbles on the beach are smooth and rounded, yet the cliff face above them is sharp and angular. Which process explains the pebbles?
• On the River Tees a river plunges over a hard ledge of rock, and just downstream lies a deep, narrow, steep-sided valley. What best explains that valley?
• On the Holderness coast a long, narrow ridge of sand and shingle reaches out from a bend in the coastline into the mouth of the Humber, with a curved tip. What is it?

Explain how processes shape a UK landscape

Explain how physical processes have shaped ONE distinctive UK landscape you have studied, either a stretch of coast or a river valley. Use named processes, put them in order, and name a real place.

• Locate the landscape and say whether it is upland or lowland, and what rock it is built of
• Name the erosion processes at work and say what each one acts on
• Explain how material is transported and where and why it is deposited
• Describe ONE landform in the landscape and explain, stage by stage, how the processes formed it
• Finish by explaining why the landscape looks different from a landscape built on a different rock type