BPSC 70th CCE Re-exam Prelims General Studies · Question 124 of 142

Correct — A, Foot-hills of Karst. The Dalmatian coast, on the eastern shore of the Adriatic in Croatia, is the type example of a concordant or longitudinal coastline, and in coastal geomorphology the whole class is named after it: the Dalmatian type features long offshore islands and coastal inlets lying parallel to the coastline. That parallelism is the signature of the process. The limestone ridges of the Dinaric ranges were folded along a line parallel to the present shore; when the sea rose after the last glaciation, it flooded the long furrows between the ridges and left their crests standing out of the water as a chain of elongated islands. The rock matters as much as the structure. These are the Dinaric limestones, and the word karst itself comes from this region — karst is the topography produced by the dissolution of soluble carbonate rocks such as limestone and dolomite, with poljes at the surface and sinkholes and caves below. Option (a) is the only one that names karst at all, and the हिन्दी column confirms that this is deliberate: it reads कार्स्टजन्य पर्वत-पदीय, karst-derived and piedmont, which is precisely the karst-flank-meets-sea description the landform requires. Note also that the Adriatic Sea is itself a concordant feature, a body of water lying between parallel ranges — the same structure at a larger scale.

• (b)River depositional — A depositional coast is built out by sediment — deltas, mudflats, spits and bars, as at the mouths of the Ganga or the Mississippi. The Dalmatian coast is the opposite case: it is a coast of submergence, drowned by a rise in sea level, and its islands are the tops of pre-existing ridges rather than material laid down by a river.
• (c)Foot-hills — The trap option, because it is the correct answer with the operative word removed. A bare 'foot-hills' coast says only that hills come down to the sea, which is true of a great many coasts and explains nothing about the long parallel islands. It is the karst — the soluble limestone of the Dinaric ranges — that gives the Dalmatian coast its character, and the option that drops it drops the whole explanation.
• (d)Intermontane — An intermontane feature is a basin or plateau lying between mountain ranges — a landlocked category, describing a hollow enclosed by highlands rather than a shoreline. The word is being tested for recognition here: a coastline cannot be intermontane, because it is by definition where land meets sea rather than where land is enclosed by land.

Coasts are classified in two independent ways, and questions usually turn on one of them. The first is by the relation between geological structure and shoreline. On a concordant, longitudinal or Pacific-type coast, the ridges of folded rock run parallel to the sea, and submergence produces chains of long islands and narrow channels — the Dalmatian type. On a discordant or Atlantic-type coast the structures meet the sea end-on, and drowning produces deep inlets between headlands, as with the rias of south-west Ireland. The second classification is by change in sea level: coasts of submergence, which give rias, fjords and Dalmatian coasts, and coasts of emergence, which give raised beaches and wide coastal plains. Karst belongs to a third and separate family of landforms — those produced by the solution of limestone, giving sinkholes, caves, poljes and blind valleys — and the Dalmatian coast is interesting precisely because it sits where the two families meet, a drowned karst mountain flank.

Attack a landform question by naming the process each option implies and then asking whether the named place can be its product. 'River depositional' implies building out by sediment; 'intermontane' implies enclosure by mountains, which no coast can satisfy; 'foot-hills' implies nothing beyond relief. Only 'foot-hills of karst' names both a rock type and a setting, and it is the one that fits a coast famous for parallel limestone islands. That is also the reason this question is a good example of the general principle for this paper — when two options differ only by a qualifying phrase, the qualifier is almost always the point of the question, not a decoration. The Dalmatian coast is worth learning as a package, because it also anchors the vocabulary: concordant coast, submergence, karst, and the Dinaric ranges that gave the word karst to the world's geographers.

• A concordant, longitudinal or Pacific-type coastline occurs where folded ridges of rock run parallel to the coast; the Dalmatian type, named from Dalmatia on the Adriatic, has long offshore islands and inlets parallel to the shore
• Dalmatian coasts form in conditions of submergence — a relative rise in sea level drowning the valleys between parallel ridges
• Karst is topography formed by the dissolution of soluble carbonate rocks such as limestone and dolomite, with poljes above and sinkholes and caves below; the term comes from this Adriatic region
• The Adriatic Sea is itself a concordant feature, a body of water lying between parallel mountain ranges
• The other concordant landform is the Haff type — the lagoons of the southern Baltic shore, enclosed by long sand spits parallel to a low coast
• The contrasting discordant or Atlantic-type coast, where structures run at right angles to the shore, produces rias such as those of south-west Ireland

• Choosing the option that strips out the qualifying term; 'foot-hills' and 'foot-hills of karst' differ by the only words that carry the explanation
• Confusing a coast of submergence with a depositional coast — one is drowned, the other is built out
• Using 'intermontane' for anything coastal; it describes basins and plateaus enclosed by ranges

BPSC asks the classification of a named landform in a single line, and builds the option set so that one choice is the right answer with a word missing — a design that rewards precise vocabulary over general familiarity. UPSC rarely names a foreign coastline; it asks the underlying processes through Indian examples instead, so the terminology has to be learnt once and then applied to whatever place is offered.

No directly related past PYQ was found.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  A coastline where ridges of folded rock run parallel to the shore is called

  • (a)a discordant or Atlantic-type coast
  • (b)a concordant or Pacific-type coast
  • (c)an emergent coast
  • (d)a fjord coast

  Answer(b) a concordant or Pacific-type coast — of which the Dalmatian coast of the Adriatic is the type example, with long islands and inlets running parallel to the mainland.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Which of the following is NOT a karst landform ?

  • (a)Polje
  • (b)Sinkhole
  • (c)Blind valley
  • (d)Moraine

  Answer(d) Moraine — a glacial deposit. Poljes, sinkholes and blind valleys are all produced by the solution of limestone.