Wave-Cut Platforms on Two Coasts

On the California coast, where I live, wave-cut platforms are important parts of the landscape. However, they're worldwide features because so many of them were created by eustatic conditions—the state of global sea level. So look around where you live and maybe you'll spot one. But if you live in northern places where ice-age glaciers once sat, the wave-cut platforms in your area may be isostatic ones, which have a history that involves up-and-down movement of the land instead. Learn the difference in the gallery of wave-cut platforms.
_{Eustatic platform, Sonoma County Calif. — Geology Guide photo}