A shore platform on the western coast of Galicia in northwestern Spain has been inherited from interglacial stages when sea level was similar to today. The wide, gently sloping intertidal platform is backed in places by supratidal rock ledges, and in other places by a steeper and narrower supratidal ramp. The gradient of the intertidal platform is consistent with the relationship between platform gradient and tidal range, but the slope of the ramp is much too high. The abandoned and degraded sea cliff is grass-covered along most of this coast, and the ledges and the ramp, which extend up to several metres above the highest tides, are covered by lichen and, in places, by salt-tolerant plants. Radiocarbon-dated sediments in the cliff, which range up to 36 000 years in age, lie on top of an ancient beach deposit. The former beach, remnants of which are found in situ on the ramp and rock ledges, as well as two caves that are filled with the dated sediments, are probably last interglacial in age. The morphological and sedimentary evidence suggests that the supratidal ramp and ledges were also formed during the last interglacial stage, whereas the wider intertidal platform is probably the product of several older interglacials, when sea level was generally similar to today. A general model is proposed for the inheritance of shore platforms in macro-and microtidal environments.

There is increasing evidence that shore platforms and other elements of rock coasts may be inherited, at least in part, from interglacial stages when sea level was similar to today's. Most of this evidence, which includes ancient beaches and datable terrestrial deposits, has been obtained from areas of resistant, slowly eroding rock, where the platforms often appear to be much too wide to have developed since the sea reached its present level. It is much more difficult to demonstrate that inheritance has occurred in areas of weaker rock, which generally lack any datable material. The coast of western Galicia in northwestern Spain has shore platforms in igneous and metamorphic rocks that were deeply weathered during the Tertiary. These platforms are closely associated with ancient beaches from the last interglacial stage, and associated periglacial and fluvio-nival deposits that covered and fossilized most of the Eemian platforms and cliffs during the late middle and late Weichselian glacial stage. The sedimentary processes and the thickness and facies of the sediments were determined by the height, aspect and gradient of the coastal mountains, and their distance from the coast. Radiocarbon dating, sedimentary analysis and platform morphology indicate that the shore platforms of Galicia have been inherited from at least the last interglacial stage. They were fossilized in places beneath thick Weichselian deposits and then exhumed during the Holocene transgression. The abundant evidence for inheritance in Galicia has important implications for other coasts in fairly weak rocks where such evidence is generally lacking.

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