Raised beach platforms, Parrog, Newport, Pembs

With a good low tide yesterday, I was able to do some scrambling on the rocks below the walkway along the western edge of the estuary, on Parrog, Newport.  From the footpath, it's normally difficult to pick up the little details.  Anyway, I realised just how spectacular are the remnants of the raised beach platform, a couple of metres above HWM and still within reach of storm waves.   There is a patchy cover of turf, but the degree of planation is quite impressive.  It's also noticeable how the platform -- which might have been very extensive at one time -- has been chopped up into small remnants by gullying and coastal erosion concentrated along fault lines and zones of weakness in the bedrock shales.  There are no raised beach traces on the platform, but there are many patches of slope breccia (head) and Devensian till.

Not far from the old lifeboat station there is a wonderful example of a platform that is still being eroded by coastal processes.

Look at this carefully (click to enlarge) and you can see just how smooth this platform is, in a small cove where wave action can be concentrated and where there is much eddying and turbulence in water flow. There is a thin veneer of pebbles, cobbles and boulders -- perfect for platform erosion, since they must be moved around quite vigorously with every rise and fall of the tide. (If the pebble beach was thicker than this, the platform would be protected rather than subject to erosive processes.) 

The platform may be a fresh, but I suspect that like the other platform traces at various heights above MWL it's an inherited feature.  But sure as eggs is eggs, this platform is being flattened, smoothed and extended as we watch.