Encyclopedia of Planetary Landforms

2015 Edition
| Editors: Henrik Hargitai, Ákos Kereszturi

Deltas, Rías, and Estuaries

  • Federico Vilas
  • Ana M. Bernabeu
  • Belén Rubio
  • Daniel Rey
  • Henrik Hargitai
Reference work entry
First Online:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-3134-3_601
How to cite

Synonyms

 Coastal subsystems

Note

This entry is about the terrestrial analogs of potential extraterrestrial features.

Introduction

On Earth, the area of contact between the sea and the land is composed of a complex variety of sedimentary environments distributed along of the shoreline. They have common features that allow the collective study of their bathymetry, geomorphology, the origin and nature of the energy associated with transportation of sediments, sedimentation rate and direction of transport, etc. In turn, they represent some of the fastest and most significant spatial changes in sedimentation conditions that can be observed on the surface of the Earth (Fig. 1).
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References

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Copyright information

© Springer Science+Business Media New York 2015

Authors and Affiliations

  • Federico Vilas
    • 1
  • Ana M. Bernabeu
    • 1
  • Belén Rubio
    • 1
  • Daniel Rey
    • 1
  • Henrik Hargitai
    • 2
  1. 1.Department of Marine GeosciencesUniversity of VigoVigoSpain
  2. 2.NASA Ames Research Center/NPPMoffett FieldUSA