Feed Avatar

My Profile

Avatar


Student

Toronto, Canada

XX, 20XX


York Lions

Fall Term - Exams in December



Interests

News Geography Science Games Friends Games Friends Food Design Art Photos


Hey!

People are looking at your profile. Find out who.

Post a status!

Status: Feeling cold =( ^o^)ノ___o


Avatar 1 min

Marielle Manansala



Status: Devious ←~(o `▽´ )oΨ

Haha @Niels Stensen, yeah no bueno.


Avatar 16 min

Niels Stensen



Status: Feeling hopeful.

There’s a huge wall of text on my feed, not surprising. I’d be more impressed if @Marielle Manansala wrote about how the Earth’s crust reveals geological events chronologically but I digress.


Avatar 32 min

Marielle Manansala



Status: Serious.

Before I formally start, I want to preface that the explanation will be divided into a portmanteau way or in other words, 3 segments:

  1. Anatomy and functionality of waves/tides
  2. formation of beaches
  3. Varying coastal features found within Ontario

These will be started with an introduction and will end with a conclusion, akin to any analysis essay you might see about movies. What I’m trying to do here is replicate the format of most movie analysis and use it to explain the vast capabilities of waves. I figured that it would be fun, at least for me. If it’s a hit, I’ll consider writing another one about the law of superposition. Maybe. Regardless, please enjoy!

Fluvial is a term associated with processes involving moving water. Canada is definitely not a stranger to these processes as it’s considered to be the world’s largest coastal nation. What this means is that Canada is subjected to the forces of water and other coastal processes, ultimately resulting in varying landforms. Let’s investigate a bit further into coastal geomorphology together by understanding how waves and tides operate, how its formation takes place, and its other byproducts.

Waves, whether you define it in its physics or mathematical sense, just simply view it as water movement. Waves are essentially water movement caused by blowing wind on its surface. Within the process of waves, there is a cumulative effect that act on each other like dominos falling on each other:

It first starts with the way how the wind blows on the water affects how the waves move accordingly.
- Waves are given characteristics in which help differentiate and categorized such movements.
~ Certain characteristics control the waves' influence on the environment.
~ The waves' influence will vary on its location.

Ultimately, all of these processes work together which then contribute to the gradual formation of the landscapes found in coastal environments.

    Wave characteristics and common terminology include:
  • Wavelength: length between crests or between troughs
  • Crest: top of the wave
  • Trough: bottom of the wave
  • Amplitude: the height of the wave; the distance between the trough and the crest’s height
  • Period: the time a crest at point A needs to reach point B
  • Frequency: the number of crests passing by point A in seconds.
    Depending on the measure of these characteristics, waves are classified accordingly:
  1. Deep waves - waves furthest away from the shoreline, typically bearing no effect on the seabed.
  2. Intermediate waves - waves that are relatively near the shoreline and have minimal contact with the seabed's surface.
  3. Shallow-water waves - waves closest to the shoreline, affecting seabed and contributing to material deposition the most.
These waves are then located within two zones, the offshore and nearshore zones.
- The offshore zone does not affect the seabed, thus deep waves are found here.
- The nearshore zone does affect the seabed and is divided into 3 subzones: breaker zone, surf zone, and swash zone which consists of intermediate waves and shallow-water waves.

These are a lot of terms, so feel free to take a minute. Below here, I've (poorly) illustrated three diagrams showcasing the characteristics and wave depths, respectively.

Fig. 1. Diagram of wave properties
Fig. 2. Diagram of wave movement depth
Fig. 3. Diagram of wave movement locations along a shoreline

In addition, there are tides that are heavily correlated with waves. Tides refer to the waves caused by gravitational attraction from both the moon and sun, rather than wind. Just like waves, tides are one of the multiple factors that influence coastal locations and their resulting features.

  1. Spring tide - large, high tides and small, low tides when both the sun and moon are aligned
  2. Neap tide - large, high tides where the moon is pulling; small, low tides where the sun is pulling.

I've also illustrated how this would look, which is found below.

Fig. 4. Diagram of the sun and moon placements during spring and neap tides

Now with that being established, tides are one of the multiple factors that influence coastal locations and their landscapes. Keep this in mind as I’ll come back to this.

The grand takeaway from this segment is that: Waves and tides are two of the main processes that influence coastal environments. Simply put, one process is affected by wind, whilst the other is influenced by gravitational attraction. When combining both processes together, the two contribute in forming landforms found in coastal environments and much more.

Still with me? Great, we're moving to the next segment about how waves, along with other processes, resulting in landforms.

To start, most coastal landforms are products of both erosional and depositional processes involving sediment from multiple environments.
- Erosional processes refer to the weathering, the process of breaking down the material.
- Depositional processes refer to materials that have traveled from one location to another.

One of the most notable features of coastal environments are beaches. I’m sure that everyone knows what a beach is and has their own unique experiences being there. However, in a geomorphological sense, beaches are defined as areas of sand and/or gravel deposition by waves, often along shorelines.

What’s responsible for such deposition? I’m glad you asked whoever-is-viewing-this-post! Let me backtrack a bit to the first segment and discuss why I mentioned all of those terms.

For landscapes to be created, it needs sediment of either consolidated bedrock or unconsolidated material. Particularly for beaches, it required unconsolidated sediment that is brought in by three main mechanisms: (1) wind, (2) waves, and (3) tides. Winds are more correlated with depositional processes, whereas both waves and tides are responsible for erosional processes.

  • Depositional processes are driven by wind, which transports sediment from various sources such as rivers, high latitudes, glacier debris, areas of erosion, etc.
  • Erosional processes are driven by waves/tides as they contribute to an area’s weathering rates, resulting in sandy or rocky textures along the shoreline.

With both processes combined, sediment is being accumulated that needs to be deposited into a coastal setting.

What happens to this sediment accumulation?

Waves within the nearshore zone (particularly the surf and swash zones) wash over and retract, resulting in partially depositing sediment while also partially carrying it away. Whilst these waves are influenced by the area’s wind power, tide currents play an additional influence as well. Depending on the astronomical factors, waves/tides will act accordingly.
- If there are spring tides, waves reach farther distances to erode shorelines.
- If there are neap tides, additional fluvial processes occur simultaneously.

Gradually over time, this repeated action may result in that land strip of soft sand where everyone is preoccupied with just relaxing as the sun beams brightly, and immediately, you’ll think, “Oh, a beach.”

(Poorly drawn) Drawing of a beach with a mercenary, Guts, and witch-in-training, Schierke from Berserk! (Let me know if I should write a chapter analysis in the comments!)

Obviously, this is simply an oversimplification - beaches are quite dynamic. It responds to its surroundings’ conditions based on its weather conditions, the intensity of currents, and seasonal changes. It becomes even more dynamic when you consider the other features caused by waves near beaches, or how there are different types of beaches.

Here are some prime examples of beach diversity found throughout Ontario:
Shorelines lined with rocky terrain often result in pebble-dominated beaches.
- Indian Head Cove & The Grotto, located in Bruce Peninsula National Park in Tobermory
Shorelines lined with erodible material, such as quartz, often result in sandy beaches.
- Pancake Bay Provincial Park, located west of Sault Ste. Marie

The grand takeaway from this new segment is that: Waves are considered to be the primary connection between water and land. Its continual motion between terrestrial and marine locations creates dynamic landscapes involving sediment accumulation, one of them including beaches.

When you think of waves, typically you’d obviously correlate them with beaches, which is the main reason why I created a whole segment dedicated to them. However, waves and tides are complex and have the capacity to create much more.

Waves/tides are heavily influential in creating features by sediment deposition. This is noticeable when looking at a beach profile, an overview of the beach landscape that encompasses areas above and below water and the area surrounding it. Aside from beaches, it can create various patterns along the beach and other landforms within the coastal environment.

Here are a couple of exmaples found within such coastal environments, which are all directly and/or indirectly affected by waves and tides:

  • Spits - narrow sediment deposit lands that occur in a parallel direction, often connected to the mainland.
  • Barrier islands - sediment deposit lands like spits, just disconnected from the mainland.
  • Lagoons - bodies of water separated from the ocean by other features, such as sandbars and barrier islands.
  • Pretty cool huh?

My main takeaway from this: Look at me making a whole post about waves/tide processes. If you made this far, I’m flattered you stuck with me where I indulge in a topic that not many people are informed about. While I don’t expect that you all become geographers and whatnot, I just hope that this post will encourage you to take a look at the wonderful features that Ontario has to offer. Particularly for me, it was beaches and that led me to go down a rabbit hole and write this extremely long post about waves LOL. So next time you’re outside enjoying REAL nature, think about the complexities it took to create such features and landforms overtime :^)

Yup, that’s all I have to say. In case ya wanna skip everything and just want a little summary, here ya go -


Avatar 32 min

Niels Stensen



Status: Worried?

Hey, has anyone been able to scroll through their feed without having a whole wall of text block their way? I read that Marielle will be posting some explanation on waves soon… Perhaps they should write about the law of superposition instead...


Avatar 2 days

Marielle Manansala



Status: Inspired ╰(°∇≦*)╮

Hey everyone! It’s been a while since I last posted. My movie review for Lost in Translation gained a small bit of traction surprisingly. What I thought was just a small blurb had evolved into a grand discussion of films and such. For those that contributed, it was a pleasure to read whatcha thought of the movie. However, for the people awaiting for another review, ya might have to wait a bit. Between balancing school and work, I suppose I haven’t found the time to just sit and watch a movie. It’s crazy, I mean watching movies is practically my thing. My peanut butter to my jam, my hot water to my teabag - what am i saying LOL

Anyways, it’s expected that I’d be preoccupied with other things as a university student. It’s just the way things are. I mean, I may be busy with homework and work but studying geography has really broadened my horizons. The lake that I pass by on my daily morning walk at the park, the distinctive pattern on the grassland that passes by me as I drive up to Northern Ontario, just the land surrounding me everywhere is viewed much more differently now that I understand its complexity. One of my classes talks about geomorphology, the study of Earth’s topography (shape and form) and its features along with it, and trust me - it’s interesting, interesting enough that saying some random facts about glaciers could break the silence in those ZOOM breakroom calls and have everyone say, “Oh wow, that’s crazy.” It’s probably not as deep as I’m making it seem but it’s enjoyable to understand things in depth. I’m gonna say it, I’ve grown to really appreciate landform evolution as much as I appreciate movies.

That brings me to my next topic, I’ve been out and about recently. With the quarantine regulations lessening over time, I took this to my advantage and decided to wander around Toronto. Throughout my journey, I’ve stumbled upon a lovely sight called “Sugar Beach” that was designed by landscape architect Claude Cormier. This beach is located near Toronto’s Waterfront and looks like how you’d expect it to look like, a beach. Clearly, this beach is just another project for urban revitalization, no doubt about it. Just the contrast between our jungle city of continuous buildings and this artificial attempt of a natural phenomenon made me think of Canadian landforms and how they came to be naturally.

More specifically, it made me think of the geomorphology caused by water systems (since I’m learning about this stuff in class)

Then I thought about how I haven’t been posting as of lately…

*light bulb moment*

How about I write about what I’ve been learning about? It’ll be a full-fledged explanation, almost like I’m writing a full movie review. I mean, what are the chances of you stumbling by a post simplifying the processes of fluvial systems? Would a normal person just scroll past this potentially large text block? Yeah, but who cares.

PLAN: write a whole run-through of how coastal landforms, specifically beaches, are formed.

RESULTS: walls of text about beaches, feeling of accomplishment for putting this geography knowledge to use, perhaps (if I’m lucky) 5 likes.

Gonna buy me another coffee. ಥ_ಥ


Avatar 12 days ago

Marielle Manansala



Status: Tiredddddddddddddddddddddddd ಠ_ಠ

With the reading week coming to an end, I present to you a plethora of movies I’ve watched after doing all my necessary studying:

  • Catch Me If You Can (2002)
  • Léon: The Professional (1994)
  • Akira (1988)
  • DUNE (1984)
  • Moonlight (2016)
  • Minari (2020)
  • Lost in Translation (2003)

As much as I want to pour my soul and heart out in typing movie reviews that probably get more care and attention than my actual school essays, I’ll hold myself back. However, I’ll talk about Lost in Translation briefly.

Lost in Translation is an indie film directed by Sofia Coppola. Man, Coppola sets the nostalgic mood to the tee. The whole setup of the movie was as if I went to Tokyo circa 2003. Each frame was positioned ever so elegantly and that’s a feat that is close to Wes Anderson and Wong Kar-Wai’s level. Both the aesthetics and overall score of the film exceeded expectations and it all had a place. In regards to the mood of the film, the small intimate moments that Bob Harris (Bill Murray) and Charlotte (Scarlett Johansson) both shared in combination with the muted pastel palettes will absolutely bring this sense of loneliness??? out of you and that was great. However, ya gotta ignore the blatant racism if you really look into the movie. Admittedly, these observations will go unnoticed if you focus on the main two characters but then again, half of the movie involved them making fun of Japanese people by using them as props or a plot device, I’m not sure. I get that Coppola created this film as a homage to Japan but perhaps that too was lost in translation.

Regardless, go ahead and watch this. This movie’s great when the weather outside is a bit cold and foggy. DM me if you need a link to watch the movie illegally because… I mean… it saves money? LOLOLOL

ε=ε=ε=ε=┏(  ̄▽ ̄)┛ - me on the run when the movie police know that i have a super-secret site for free movies

Edit: Perhaps I should do more of these reviews. Hmmmmmmmm. I’ll post another once I get some time or something… or not… who knows? As for now, back to grinding in school.

I guess you could say “back to mining in school” Get it? Since I’m a geography major and mining is correlated to mountains which ties back to the land formation and land formation ties in with geography… It was funnier in my head. ┐( ̄ヘ ̄)┌

Edit: … I’ll see myself out, no need to comment “*throwing tomatoes, booing*”


Avatar 26 days ago

Marielle Manansala



Hello! #firstpost

This is pretty exciting to finally post something here. I heard about this new website “NookFeed” and how it’s the new upcoming social media website that’ll take over the internet. It kinda looks like a bootleg Facebook, not gonna lie. It’ll probably just be a hit for us York Uni students. Perhaps I should give the creator some slack. I heard that she’s some sleep-deprived university student in the Environmental Science program.

Whelp. Kudos to her, I guess. I’m not that different haha, I too am an environmental science student studying geography and all that jazz.

With the whole pandemic occurring in 2020 and the closure of practically everything, it’s been tough in all aspects - financially, physically, emotionally, and mentally. While I love being in the comfort of my own home and the company of my family, I hope to branch out a bit and meet new people, even if it’s all just virtual.

Anyways, I’ll be straightforward. I’m gonna post a lot of stuff. This is gonna range from random reviews to random things I’ve noticed or stuff I find interesting. I mean, I hope so. There are not much users present on the site yet so I won’t feel too embarrassed about my continuous rambling.

Well, I’ll see you in my next post! d( > _・ )


34 days ago

Bibliography + Work Cited



    Photos:
  • https://hero.fandom.com/wiki/Frisk - Undertale, Frisk by Toby Fox
  • https://villains.fandom.com/wiki/Chara - Undertale, Chara by Toby Fox
  • https://www.123rf.com/photo_96347779_stock-illustration-assignment-calendar-project-task-due-date-circled-3d-illustration.html - Assignment Calendar Project Task Due Date Circled 3d Illustration
  • https://www.pinterest.ie/artwallaceart/karst-landscape/ - Karst landscape
  • https://www.pinterest.de/pin/775745104544931877/ - Glacial landform
  • https://www.onthisday.com/events/date/1837/february - Charles Lyell
  • https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-lost-in-translation-2003 - Lost In Translation screencap
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugar_Beach - Sugar Beach
  • https://explorethebruce.com/profile/the-grotto-indian-head-cove/2274/ - Grotto & Indian Head Cove
  • http://visitnorthwestontario.com/parks/pancake-bay-provincial-park/ - Pancake Bay Provincial Park
  • https://eartheclipse.com/geography/spit-landform.html - Spits landform
  • https://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/conservation/issues/barrier-island.htm - Barrier Island
  • https://www.nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/lagoon/ - lagoon
    Sources:
  • Bierman, Paul R. Key Concepts in Geomorphology. W H FREEMAN, 2020.
  • GEOG2600 lecture notes - Week 10: Coasts
  • National Geographic Society. “Beach.” National Geographic Society, 9 Oct. 2012, https://www.nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/beach/prek/.

Upcoming Events:

Stressed

Assignment Due

Friday 23:59


Friend Request

Avatar
Charles Lyell

ADS