Abstract The identification and characterization of geomorphological units or systems is particularly important in the coastal zone. Indeed, the consequences of failure to appreciate the physical environment can be more acute on the coast, as rapid, major changes are a reality for land use planning and development. On the coast, it is often more useful to map the landscape in terms of sediment ‘cells’ (i.e. process units) rather than terrain units (i.e. landform units) as an understanding of the supply and transport of sediment (e.g. sand and shingle) is fundamental to dealing with many shoreline problems. Sediment is circulated in what often can be regarded, for practical purposes, as almost closed cells that are separated by boundaries across which little beach material is transferred. Each cell can be characterized in terms of the inputs, outputs, stores and sinks of sediment. For example, to understand the development of a beach it is useful to consider it as a store of shingle or sand supplied from source areas on the adjacent coastline or offshore (Fig. 1 ). Beach building material might be supplied from the seabed, moved onshore by wave energy, or from rivers and eroding cliffs. This material is then redistributed along the shoreline by waves (‘longshore drift’), unless prevented by barriers such as headlands or breakwaters. Although longshore drift might be prevented by these barriers, some of the material can still be ‘lost’ to the system around the seaward end of the barriers or offshore, particularly during large storms.

Abstract The cliffs and foreshore at Lyme Regis on the Dorset coast expose a sequence of Early Jurassic marine limestones and mudstones of the Blue Lias Formation and the overlying Charmouth Mudstone Formation, the lowest units of the Hettangian–Aalenian Lias Group. Known for its fossils since at least the mid-seventeenth century, this coastal section became famous in the early nineteenth century for the bones of ‘fossil crocodiles’. Many of the most significant discoveries were made by a family of fossil dealers whose best-known member was Mary Anning (1799–1847). Anning and her family recovered the first scientifically described ichthyosaurs, the first complete plesiosaur and the first British pterosaur to be identified. Anning's finds from Lyme Regis formed the basis of the pioneering palaeoenvironmental reconstruction Duria antiquior . Her geologist friends, some with close personal associations to the town, did much to publicize her discoveries and contribute to both her fame and that of the locality. This famous coastal section, with its important historical associations with a key period in the development of geology and the source of so many significant discoveries in the early nineteenth century, now lies within the Jurassic Coast UNESCO World Heritage Site.