Introduction
The coastline of Georgia borders a wide plain on the trailing edge of the North American plate, which is generally tectonically stable to slightly downwarped. The coastline is low-lying and depositional, with Pleistocene and HoloÂcene barrier island, bay, lagoonal and estuarine deposits blanketing an irregular topography eroded during low stands of sea level in the Pleistocene epoch (Hayes 1994). The state borders the western flank of the Georgia Embayment, a large indentation in the coastline of south-eastern United States. The outer coastline is about 160 km long, but the intricate tidal shorelines behind the barrier islands are several times that length.
Wave heights are generally less than 0.8 m, and mean spring tides are between 1.2 and 2.8 m. The Georgia coast is generally tide-dominated, in contrast with the more wave-dominated coast in Florida to the south, and the strongest currents are generated through tidal inlets.
The climate is humid subtropical, with abundant...
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References
Edwards JM, Frey RW (1977) Substrate characteristics within a Holocene marsh, Sapelo Island, Georgia. Senckenberg. Marit 9:215–259
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Hayes, M. (2010). Georgia. In: Bird, E.C.F. (eds) Encyclopedia of the World's Coastal Landforms. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-8639-7_11
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