Coastal and Oceanic Landform ( 43. Sea Cave )

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• A sea cave known as a littoral cave.

• Formed by the wave action.

• Process involved is erosion.

• Largest caves found on  Norway coast.

• Littoral caves found in a wide variety of host rocks.

examples:

Fingal's Cave,

Staffa

The Blue Grotto of Capri

• Ranging from sedimentary-metamorphic to igneous.

• The host rock must first contain a weak zone.

• In metamorphic or igneous rock,

Channel Islands of California,

 adike 

Kauai

Hawaii’s Na Pali Coast

• Igneous rocks, such as in the caves on Santa Cruz Island, California.

• Most sea-cave walls are irregular and chunky.

• Reflecting an erosional process.

• Rock is fractured piece by piece.

• Some caves walls are rounded and smoothed.

• True littoral caves not confused with inland caves.

• Carbonate rocks are found in littoral zones  formed by dissolution,

                    Halong Bay, Vietnam

• Rainwater may also influence sea-cave formation. 

• Sea cave chambers  collapse leaving a “littoral sinkhole”.

 - Oregon’s Devil’s Punchbowl 

 - Queen’s Bath, Na Pali

• Small peninsulas / headlands often have caves.

•  The Californian island of Anacapa is split into 3 islets by such a process.