Introduction
The coast of Latvia is about 496 km long, extending from the Estonian border southward around the coast of the Gulf of Riga to Cape Kolka (Kolkasrags) on the Kurzeme Peninsula, then southwest past Ventspils, and Liepaja to the Lithuanian border.
Much of the Latvian coastal area is an undulating lowland with Pleistocene glacial drift deposits of varying thickness concealing Devonian bedrock (sandstone, dolomite and clay), and Holocene marine sands and gravels, alluvial deposits, aeolian sands, lagoonal peats, clays and gyttja. The coast is generally low-lying, often between 4 and 8 m high. There are extensive sand and gravel beaches and boulder-strewn shores and nearshore areas, and locally reeds and rushes grow on the shore.
Cliffs cut in glacial drift occur along separate sections of the open Baltic coast from Liepaja to Ventspils, bluffs cut in soft marine and aeolian sediments stretch from Ventspils to Kolka, with low cliffs cut in Devonian sandstones only along the...
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Eberhards, G., Brenners, V. (2010). Latvia. In: Bird, E.C.F. (eds) Encyclopedia of the World's Coastal Landforms. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-8639-7_104
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