Lateral and vertical Earth movement

Lateral earth movements

• They are diastrophic/large scale differential movements that operate horizontally within the earth crust.
• They are caused by internal forces i.e. tensional forces (divergent forces) and compressional forces (convergent forces}, with resulting strains and stresses in the rocks.
• They lead to folding and faulting of the coast

While

Vertical earth movements

• They are diastrophic movements that operate vertically exerting a pushing force onto the crust either upward or downward along a radius from the centre of the earth to the surface.
• They usually occur on a large scale hence called epeirogenic (slow large scale uplift) and may involve vertical uplift or subsidence.

Possibly the result of isostatic readjustment, or warping and titling may be on a local scale especially around the coast, thus affecting the relative level of land and sea and therefore the nature of the coastline. Also lead to warping and tilting.