Shoreline Depositional System

Stable sea level is characterized by neutral, depositional shorelines that prograde (extend) seaward, often at extremely rapid rates. The sediments are brought by rivers (deltas and estuaries), streams from nearby mountains (alluvial fans), glaciers (morainic outwash), and volcanoes (tephra beds and lava flows). In certain 

Emergent shorelines expose shore-adjacent portions of the continental shelf which have become coastal belts. Rapid coastal emergence, common in formerly glaciated areas that presently rebound and in places of coastal faulting and volcanic activity, results in wave-abraded scarped and cliffy shores. Many shorelines have dominant characteristics of more than one of the above subdivisions. 

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Penland, S.P, Suter, J.R., and Boyd, R. 1988. Transgressive depositional systems of the Mississippi delta plain A model for barrier shoreline and shelf sand development. Journal of Sedimentary Petrology, 58(6) 932-949. 

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