We stayed in Lyme Regis, an historic little town on the "Jurassic Coast", so called because along 95 miles of coastline about 185 million years of history is exposed in the cliffs along the shore. At Lyme Regis the cliffs are about 200 million years old. We read that the shores are littered with fossils, so eagerly set out along Chippel Bay to the west of Lyme Regis, where we could see people scattered into the distance with their heads down, also looking for those elusive fossils.
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| In Lyme Regis the streetlights contain ammonites! |
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| On Chippel Beach searching for fossils. |
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| Traces of a large ammonite in the rock. |
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| A bigger ammonite - not something you can put in your pocket. |
After finding no take-home fossils on Chippel Bay, next day we drove along the coast to nearby Charmouth, where they are so easy to find that even children will have no trouble! It was raining and stormy, but we gritted our teeth and set out along the beach. They say that wild weather is the best time, and a falling tide, because all the freshly-exposed fossils will be there for the finding. There are high, soft cliffs along the beach, displaying many layers of sediment and obviously eroding quickly and falling onto the beach.
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| Sue wrapped up against the weather. |
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| I got my feet wet several times when I was too slow to beat an incoming wave! |
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| Finally! A beautiful little ammonite, and some other stuff. Fossil poo? |
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| The results of our day's efforts. |
The breakthrough came when we gave up all hope after about an hour and a half, and starting heading back along the beach. Suddenly there it was - a real ammonite just lying on the sand. A moment after I picked it up another man walked past and stooped to pick up another just a metre away, but i could find no more in that area.
It was harder than we expected, but we did come away with a real ammonite. It feels almost like a piece of metal. It is amazing the amount of detail that has been preserved in something 200 million years old or so.
