Tides affect all of the shore-based creatures, the degree of time they can spend in or out of water determines their location on the shore. This obviously also depends on how steep the shore is. This is complicated though by the height of rocks, and so a rocky coast gives a huge range of zones for creatures. It becomes extremely complicated and equally fascinating to study these niches.
Tides are further altered by waves. A wave is a pulse of energy moving through the water, it is caused by the friction of wind out at sea or by movement of the earth's crust. Strong winds several thousand miles away can produce huge waves by the time they reach us. This has the effect of exaggerating the tide as it pushes water further up the beach. Waves break when they come to the shore as the bottom of the energy pulse moves more slowly than the top as it experiences friction on the rising seabed, this makes the wave fall forwards. If you stand and watch the sea you are seeing cosmic and global forces at play that have been occurring for billions of years, a mind-blowing thought isn’t it? |