Introduction
Angola has a coastline about 1,600 km long (Fig. 13.13.1 ), much of it a narrow coastal plain fronting the Great Escarpment, which is dissected by numerous rivers that descend steep valleys and flow out across the coastal plain to the Atlantic Ocean. The Great Escarpment has been formed by warping of the western margin of the Pre-Cambrian shield that frames Angola (Jessen 1936; Feio 1964), and is bordered by seaward-dipping Cretaceous and Tertiary formations, which outcrop on the coast. The Tertiary formations include Pliocene red clays and sands near Luanda and Neogene marls and limestones in the surroundings of Benguela and Mocamedes. The seaward-dipping sedimentary formations have been truncated by Pliocene and Pleistocene abrasion surfaces, found up to 200 m above sea level and probably uplifted tectonically.
The Angola coast. A, location of spits and direction of growth.
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Feio M (1964) On the evolution of the great escarpment in the southwest of Angola (in Portuguese). Garcia de Orta 12:323–354
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Guilcher, A. (2010). Angola. In: Bird, E.C.F. (eds) Encyclopedia of the World's Coastal Landforms. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-8639-7_174
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