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Uplift Coasts

From the late 1800s the early geologists and geomorphologists such as W.M. Davis identified coasts of “emergence” (uplift coasts) and “submergence” (drowned coasts) relative to modern sea level. The idea was promulgated further by Johnson (1919) and Cotton (1974). In a more modern sense we now recognize continental margins as “passive” or “active” (subject to ongoing tectonic processes). Uplift coasts are typically associated with the latter.

Three primary mechanisms of coastal uplift may be identified:

• (1) Contemporaneous subduction processes at active plate margins are particularly evident around the circumference of the Pacific Ocean. Above the subduction zone the coastline is subjected to numerous tectonic and seismic processes, but particularly uplift and lateral (wrench) faulting, as for example along the northern California coast. Active plate marginal processes creating uplift coasts also occur at a medium regional scale along the Pacific South American coast, New...