Dalmetian Coast is

Question

Dalmetian Coast is

UnlockIAS · Accepted Answer

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.

Why the other options are wrong — (b) 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) 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) 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.

Concept: 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.

State PCS 2025 Q124 — Geography PYQ with Answer

State PCS 2025 Q124 — Geography PYQ with Answer