Glossary entry

English term or phrase:

simplification coast

English answer:

smoothed coast

Added to glossary by Stephanie Ezrol
Nov 20, 2009 13:34
14 yrs ago
1 viewer *
English term

simplification coast

English Social Sciences Geography Historical changes in geography
I am working from a text written by a German speaker. Is there an English language technical term for what is being described? We are looking at changes in a coast line over more than a thousand years where the coast is now less jagged, more smooth.

"The xxx Current, which runs parallel to the Atlantic shoreline of xxx, is the reason for a simplification coast. At simplification coasts, these kind of natural trenches are a well known phenomen­on. "

Discussion

Stephanie Ezrol (asker) Nov 23, 2009:
I think staight may be the term I am looking for. I looked at the coast of the Ivory Coast, as well as the coast of Morocco. They are straight in the sense of a straight line on a sphere. I had seen the term straight earlier and it threw me because I was thinking 180 degree curvature on a flat plane. But Hance uses it a few times which makes the meaning more clear. I think the sandbars do work for this author's allusions to trenches. Thank you very much.
Maria Fokin Nov 23, 2009:
to be honest i have never heard of trenches formed by longshore currents... i do know that longshore currents result in the abundant formation of sandbars (which admittedly look nothing like trenches)

Its really hard to tell which feature the author is talking about. Maybe someone else has a better idea.
Maria Fokin Nov 23, 2009:
here is an excerpt from an article on the Coastal Geomorphology of Africa:

Over long distances, the African coast is unbroken by sizable inlets, and its major river mouths, except the Congo, are either deltaic or blocked by sand barriers..
Explanations for Africa’s relatively smooth coastline and narrow continental shelf are to be found in the tectonic processes…. and geomorphic processes that have shaped the coast more precisely during later Cenozoic.
http://www.springerlink.com/content/tkk5836007408t7m/

a bit more geographic:
Its (the Ivory Coast’s) coast is the epitome for West Africa: straight, sand bar ridden and subject to enormous movements of sand.
The Geography of Modern Africa by William Adams Hance, p 194
http://books.google.com/books?id=zlBSDK4lNMgC&pg=PA194&lpg=P...

Stephanie Ezrol (asker) Nov 23, 2009:
We are talking about the west African coast.
Additionally, there is question of the natural trenches, "At simplification coasts, these kind of natural trenches are a well known phenomen­on. " If anyone know about that sort of natural formation, it may help further define the geological phenomenon, if there is there is a technical term used in English.




thanks for everyone's help so far
Dylan Edwards Nov 22, 2009:
I wonder where this coast is. That would help to narrow things down a bit. As I've indicated in a link, I found a German term, Ausgleichsküste, for which one of the suggested translations is "simplification coast" (along with "mature shore line" - but I'm not sure that's the same thing). I haven't found anything to confirm that this is a generally accepted term in English. German-English isn't one of my language pairs. Perhaps others can comment on this. All I can say is, it looks like a term indicating that the coast has been "evened out". In the light of this, Maria's answer seems a good option.

Responses

+4
1 hr
Selected

smoothed coast

the process being called coastal smoothing

example of usage:
On a smoothed coast (without the beach ridges which now give it a curvature), but with the present day bathymetric conditions, the wave power gradient was determined. There was no noticeable drift component indicating deposition.
http://search.datapages.com/data/doi/10.1306/A1ADD898-0DFE-1...

--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 1 day1 hr (2009-11-21 15:16:44 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------

or alternatively,
smooth coastline

Along the east coast these dextral and sinistral Pleistocene faults have given rise to peaks, noses and abrupt projections to the smooth coastline...
Remote sensing in geomorphology
http://books.google.com/books?id=bDiSOtte9h0C&pg=PA189&lpg=P...
Peer comment(s):

agree William [Bill] Gray
18 mins
thank you
agree Vicky Nash
1 hr
thank you
agree Rolf Keiser
2 hrs
thank you
agree Polangmar
10 hrs
thank you
neutral Dylan Edwards : This may work in non-technical language, but in your link, doesn't it refer to a computer model of the coast as it was at some time in the past? The terms "smoothed", "simplified" often refer to computer models of coastlines./OK,thanks for confirming that
18 hrs
i see your concern, this is a common computer modeling term but it is also common in geomorphology.
Something went wrong...
4 KudoZ points awarded for this answer. Comment: "Thank you very much Maria for all of your input on this. Regular or straight coast seem to come close, but I think smoothed works best in context."
-1
28 mins

eliminated the roughness of the coast

I think simplification coast means that the coast was once jagged (rough) thousand years ago, but due to the xxx Current, the coast's roughness has been eliminated and smoothened.
Peer comment(s):

neutral Armorel Young : Have you read the question? The asker is looking for a technical English term to describe this phenomenon, not for a re-phrasing of it.
13 mins
Yes, you're right. Thanks for pointing it out to me. I was possessed with the idea of re-phrasing and describing what the phrase meant.
disagree Kim Metzger : Asker's question: what is the English technical term for 'simplification coast'?
2 days 15 hrs
Something went wrong...
-1
1 hr

flat coastlines / open-coast tidal flats

It depends on whether they are sandy beaches or muddy flats. Some examples: "Look in your atlas and find two large U.S. cities that are on flat coastlines and two that are on mountainous coastlines." missiongeography.org/water4student.pdf "The cliffs give way to a flat coastline with beaches and estuarine shores in Picardy, round the mouth of the River Somme." about-france.com/tourism/french-seaside-coast.htm "Sedimentation on the open-coast tidal flats of south-western Korea is controlled by seasonal variation in the intensity of onshore-directed winds and waves. As a result, an environmental oscillation takes place between tide-dominated conditions in summer and wave-dominated conditions in winter." http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/118648482/abstrac...
Peer comment(s):

disagree Armorel Young : it's nothing to do with this sort of flatness - it's to do with the coast becoming less jagged/indented
10 mins
neutral Maria Fokin : flat coastlines refers to topography, development of such coastlines is more a function of coastal geology and time, and does not have a direct correlation to long-shore currents.
29 mins
Something went wrong...
1 hr

eroded coastline

currents have acted to erode the coastline to a less rugged, more even terrain
Peer comment(s):

neutral Maria Fokin : coastal erosion reworks the shape of a coastline resulting, at times, in a more rugged appearance because unlike individual stones that get smoothed by water action, coastlines are heterogeneous. read more here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coastal_erosion
15 mins
Something went wrong...
3 hrs

shortening and smoothing of the line

or coast line with interface ?
depends on coast
1.
" 340 km of southern Baltic coast ........It exhibits all characteristic of a simplification coast with its long sandy bars and lagoons and its steep slopes of glacial tills. It is therefore the result of a long and highly dynamic geological history which started with Litorina transgression (7800y BP) and is still ongoing.
As a consequence the coastline, which builds the interface between the brackish sea and the terrestrial surface and subsurface waters, has moved landwards".
by Maria Theresia Schafmeister, Univ Greifswald, Germany: Change of groundwater discharge os respone to varying climatic conditions-a model study at catchment svale at the Wismar bay/Baltic sea.
byw.cprm.gov.br/331GC/1343622.html

2. "the simplification coast to the line of seabanks described at Hill Pill, .....had two main effects: a gain in land for potentially year-round-use, and a shortening and smoothing of the line of a sea defence , although generally never to the extent that outfall works ceased to be protected in a recess from wave action".

to find this work you might type: Historical simplification coast
Something went wrong...
10 hrs

regular coastline

"Regular coastine" is the best I can find in the way of a technical term. It is contrasted with "irregular" or "indented coastline".

You can also find a fair number of examples of "uniform coastline".

Regular Coastlines
A Regular Coastline is smooth with very few natural harbors. Africa is an example of a regular Coastline. Regular coastline make building ports and harbors very difficult. Without these, trade, sea travel, and cultural diffusion are near to impossible. But, this also prevents invasion from the sea. This feature of Africa kept invaders out of sub-Sahara Africa for millennia.
http://regentsprep.org/Regents/global/themes/geography/bow.c...

Africa has the most regular coastline and, consequently, the lowest ratio of coastline to total area. Europe is the most irregular and indented and has by ...
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/134805/continent

Lowland drainage systems are particularly susceptible to drowning as sea level rises, producing estuaries that severely indent otherwise regular coastlines (Plate C-23).
http://disc.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/geomorphology/GEO_6/GEO_CHAPTE...

I assume that "simplification coast" is based on a German term, and it appears to be this:

Ausgleichsküste ... Translation, simplified coast, simplification coast, mature shore line, ...
http://dict.leo.org/forum/viewUnsolvedquery.php?idThread=263...

The signs are that people have had some difficulty finding a good equivalent for it in English.

I suggest "regular coastline" with some caution, because the German term have a more precise meaning within a specific system of terminology.

--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 10 hrs (2009-11-21 00:17:24 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------

... German term may have ...

--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 19 hrs (2009-11-21 08:56:57 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------

This link gives a good idea of some of the terminology used for describing coastlines:

http://www.coastalwiki.org/coastalwiki/FUTURECOAST_project,_...

You'll see that there's a term "soft coasts".

Frankly, I think it's all guesswork when it comes to finding a proper technical term. I've tried to suggest a "good enough" term for the general meaning, but I suspect that "simplification coast" - or the German term that lies behind it - has a more precise meaning (perhaps referring to the process by which the coast is shaped).
Note from asker:
Thanks for all your input. We certainly keep learning, don't we?
Something went wrong...
Term search
  • All of ProZ.com
  • Term search
  • Jobs
  • Forums
  • Multiple search