Ocean Coasts and Continental Shelves

Abstract

Suess (1900) provided the first scientific treatment of the South American coast from a tectonic perspective when he distinguished between the Atlantic and Pacific structural styles on opposite sides of the continent. Inman and Nordstrom (1971) later complemented this approach by relating these styles to the concepts of plate tectonics that had emerged during the 1960s. Useful keys to understanding South American coastal processes and sediment supplies were then offered by Davies (1977) and Potter (1994), respectively, while regional accounts of South American coastal landforms were made by specialists in books edited by Bird and Schwartz (1985) and Schwartz (2005). Clapperton (1993) reviewed Quaternary coastal morphogenesis. Coastal sites of scientific importance and historical coastline changes were discussed by Bird and Koike (1981) and Bird (1985). This chapter focuses on the principal factors involved in coastal evolution and morphogenesis, describes key regional landforms, and proposes a new analytical perspective for South America’s coasts by introducing a hierarchical system within coastal groups. The main coastline of South America is approximately 31,100 km long, of which 10,400 km face the Pacific Ocean, 16,700 the open Atlantic Ocean, and the remaining 4,000 km the more sheltered Caribbean Sea. Of the total length, approximately two-thirds lie within the tropics, ensuring that physical and ecological responses to ocean-atmosphere circulation systems involving the Intertropical Convergence Zone dominate these coasts. The remaining one third of the coast beyond the tropics is dominated during part or all of the year by temperate westerly conditions, which become increasingly cool and stormy toward the continent’s southern tip. The origins of the present coast reflect the tectonic forces that have affected the South American plate over the past 200 million years, augmented by relative sea-level changes associated with changing global (eustatic) ocean volume and regional (isostatic) crustal adjustments. The Atlantic coast of South America owes its broad outline to the separation of the continent from neighboring parts of Gondwana that began more than 200 Ma (million years ago). The Pacific and Caribbean coasts have a more complex history, related to the progressive interaction of the westwardmoving South American plate with four oceanic plates with which it has come into contact).

The composition, geography, biology and assembly of the coastal flora of the Cape Floristic Region

“… Rundel et al, 2016 ). The MCE-zone of central Chile supports well-developed coastal dune systems, of both Holocene and Pleistocene age, but coastal calcarenite formations appear to be a less important feature in this region ( Araya-Vergara, 2007 ). From the limited investigations into coastal dune floras of this region, it is apparent that they share with the Cape coastal flora a dominance by the Asteraceae, Fabaceae and Poaceae, with most species belonging to shrubby lineages ( San Martin, Ramírez & San Martin, 1992 ).…”

“…The list of species derived from these two conspectuses were supplemented with floras for coastal dune habitats produced by Olivier (1983), Van Wijk et al (2017) and Cowling et al (2019), and by incidental species lists produced during vegetation surveys in coastal dune and calcarenite habitats (Zietsman & Bredenkamp, 2006, 2007Mergili & Privett, 2008). While no structured field work was undertaken for this study, we also included georeferenced photographic records of species collected by us from 2009-2021.…”

Human–environment interactions during the early mid-Holocene in coastal Ecuador as revealed by mangrove coring in Santa Elena Province

“…Ecuador straddles the equator on the west coast of South America (Figure 1). This is a collision-edge coast; uplift is greatest along the Peruvian coast and considerably less in the Colombian-Ecuadorian tectonic group (Araya-Vergara, 2007). The shoreline of the Santa Elena Peninsula, as broadly defined (west of Estero Salado, south of Chongón-Colonche mountains), is one of emergence (Hydrotechnics, 1974).…”