How have physical processes created the coastal landforms that exist today?

When looking at physical processes it is important to explore it in two different ways:

• 'Hard coastlines': these are areas of the coastline which contain hard rock, and therefore are tougher to break down, an example being headlands and bays. Headlands are created when the sea attacks a section of the coastline which has alternating bands of hard and soft rock. Coastlines with varying soft and hard rock are known are discordant, whilst those with the same rock type are known as concordant. The soft rock (clay and sand) erodes very quickly under the force of the waves forming bays, whilst the hard rock is left standing, creating headlands. 

• 'Soft Coastlines': these are very different and involve different physical processes. An example you can use here is the case of landslides. These occur after heavy periods of rain, whereby the water saturates the rock on top rock, making it heavy and causing it to slide away. Other physical processes also affect landslides, for example the sea or river may erode the bottom of a slope, making a landslide more likely.

There are many different processes to explore when it comes to looking at how physical processes create coastal landforms, and these provide a small example. Geography requires an indepth exploration of key processes and different types of costal landforms which cannot all be answered in one question.