Caravelas strandplain, from space. North is at top. Vegetation is green and bare earth is brown. Sea is turquoise and river water is grey. This section of shoreline is situated in southern Bahia, Brazil, near the town of Caravelas (bottom). It is an example of a strandplain, a coastal landform composed of ridged-beach terraces and lagoonal deposits. The terraces are visible as lines running in a diagonal trend north-west to south-east. Each terrace marks the position of a former beach and was deposited either during the Pleistocene epoch (older, further inland) or the Holocene epoch (younger, closer to the shore). The strandplain evolved due to a combination of the change in sea-level and longshore drift. Photographed from the International Space Station on 23rd December 2006.