Beach ridge

A beach ridge is a long, low ridge of sand and other beach material that lies parallel to a shoreline. It is built or swept up by waves, and it is commonly made of sand mixed with sediment reworked from the beach beneath it. The ridge grows through littoral transport, in which wave action moves material along the shore (longshore transport) and toward or away from it (on-offshore transport). Some ridges are capped by or tied to sand dunes, and their height depends on the size and energy of the waves that formed them. A ridge can be left stranded when the water level falls or the land rises, and isolated beach ridges are found along dry lakes in the western United States, inland of the Great Lakes, and in parts of Scandinavia where the land rebounded after glacial melt. A later rise in water can drown and erode older ridges. In the Netherlands, early Holocene ridges behind the dunes formed dry routes through wet peatland, and settlements there grew into towns such as The Hague, Haarlem and Alkmaar.