A wave-cut platform, shore platform, coastal bench, or wave-cut cliff is the narrow flat area often found at the base of a sea cliff or along the shoreline of a lake, bay, or sea that was created by erosion. Wave-cut platforms are often most obvious at low tide when they become visible as huge areas of flat rock. Sometimes the landward side of the platform is covered by sand, forming the beach, and then the platform can only be identified at low tides or when storms move the sand.
A raised beach, coastal terrace, or perched coastline is a relatively flat, horizontal or gently inclined surface of marine origin, mostly an old abrasion platform which has been lifted out of the sphere of wave activity (sometimes called "tread"). Thus, it lies above or under the current sea level, depending on the time of its formation. It is bounded by a steeper ascending slope on the landward side and a steeper descending slope on the seaward side (sometimes called "riser"). Due to its generally flat shape, it is often used for anthropogenic structures such as settlements and infrastructure.
A raised beach is an emergent coastal landform. Raised beaches and marine terraces are beaches or wave-cut platforms raised above the shoreline by a relative fall in the sea level.
The Coastal Cliff of northern Chile (Spanish: Acantilado Costero) stretches over a length of more than 1000 km along the Atacama Desert. It makes up a large part of the western boundary to the Chilean Coast Range in the regions of Arica y Parinacota, Tarapacá, Antofagasta, and Atacama. According to Roland Paskoff, the modern cliff originated from a scarp retreat of a fault scarp, thus at present the cliff does not follow any fault.
In some locations, a series of coastal benches can be found below the cliff. Despite alternating uplift and subsidence of the continent at a decadal timescale the cliff and the whole western edge of the South American Plate has faced a long-term uplift during the last 2.5 million years.