Chiselbury Bay
| Chiselbury Bay | ||
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 View from the southwest over Chiselbury Bay. In the foreground probably the rocks of Crab Ledge. Behind the cliff of the northeastern edge of the bay and Smallstones Point. |
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| Waters | English Channel | |
| Land mass | Great Britain (island) | |
| Geographical location | 50 ° 39 '13 " N , 3 ° 16' 56" W | |
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| width | approx. 500 m | |
The Chiselbury Bay is an inaccessible, about 500 meters wide pebble beach cove on the cliffs of the English Channel near Exmouth in the county of Devon in southwest England .
location
Chiselbury Bay is located approximately 18 kilometers south of the city of Exeter , four kilometers northeast of Budleigh Salterton and about four kilometers southwest of Sidmouth . The extremely steep, 25-meter-high rock wall that lines the bay does not allow access from land. The easiest connection is by boat from Ladram Bay, directly to the northeast . The headland that separates Chiselbury Bay from Ladram Bay is called Smallstones Point .
Jurassic Coast
The coast of East Devon and Dorset is one of the natural wonders of the world. From Orcombe Point to Old Harry Rocks there is a 155 kilometer stretch of coastline, which was the first landscape in England to be declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The shingle beach and sandstone cliffs of Chiselbury Bay are part of what is known as the Jurassic Coast .
The Jurassic Coast rock strata tilts slightly to the east. The geologically oldest rocks are therefore in the westernmost section of this coastal geotope . The mean age of the rocks gradually decreases towards the east. The natural outcrops along the coast form a largely continuous sequence, ranging from deposits of the Triassic , through those of the Jura to those of the Cretaceous period, and represents a geological period totaling around 185 million years. The depository that held the Jurassic Coast sediment series at the time is known as the Wessex Basin .
geology
Chiselbury Bay is still relatively far to the west of the Jurassic Coast and therefore there are approx. 240 million year old rocks of the Middle Triassic. These are red sandstones and mudstones that belong to the Otter sandstone formation (Sherwood sandstone group). At that time they were deposited by the activity of rivers in a low plain under relatively dry and very warm climatic conditions. With regard to its origin, its age, its appearance and its composition, the otter sandstone is an English counterpart to the red sandstone of Central Europe.
The cliff of Chiselbury Bay is part of the type profile of the otter sandstone.
Below the cliff there is a pebble beach, the pebbles of which consist mainly of flint and other extremely fine-grained pebbles ( chert ). This shows that the origin of these pebbles could not be the Budleigh-Salterton conglomerates that make up the beach about 3 miles further to the southwest. Presumably they originate from Pleistocene deposits that occur immediately south of Chiselbury Bay in the uppermost part of the cliff.
See also
Individual evidence
- ^ Dorset and East Devon Coast . UNESCO World Heritage Center. 2001. Retrieved November 16, 2010.
- ↑ Data sheet of the Otter Sandstone Formation in the online encyclopedia of named rock units of the British Geological Survey
Web links
- Ian West and Ramues Gallois: Geology of Sidmouth and Ladram Bay, Devon, southern England. Jurassic Coast, UNESCO World Heritage Coast. 2011 richly illustrated online excursion guide