Eddystone Rocks (Channel Coast)
| Eddystone Rocks | ||
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| Waters | English Channel | |
| Geographical location | 50 ° 11 ′ N , 4 ° 16 ′ W | |
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| Highest elevation | 0.06 m | |
| Residents | uninhabited | |
The Eddystone Rocks are a group of rocks about 14 kilometers south-southwest of Plymouth on the Channel Coast at the western end of the English Channel .
geography
Eddystone Rocks extend north-south for more than 200 m (100 fathoms ) approximately 14 km from the headland of Rame Head near the border of Devon and Cornwall . Before the first Eddystone lighthouse went into operation in 1698 , the water-washed rock group was notorious as a ship cemetery .
geology
The Eddystone Rocks consist of granite gneiss that plunges steeply to the southwest . The rock, also known simply as Eddystone , on which the lighthouse stands, is characterized by a high proportion of feldspar and a laminar structure, making it the only gneiss deposit in the region.
The Eddystone Reef
Underwater, the Eddystone Reef surrounds the Eddystone Rocks. The reef is advertised as a destination for scuba divers and underwater photographers.
In 2010, the Eddystone Reef area became part of the Start Point to Plymouth Sound and Eddystone Special Area of Conservation . Since the end of 2013, mussel fishing with bottom trawls has been prohibited in an area of 200 m around the reef.
In the north of the rocks, kelp forests grow near the water surface , especially in summer . The sometimes steep rocky surfaces in the south are overgrown with sea anemones . In greater water depths, up to about 45 m deep, divers found sea cucumbers , sponges , cup corals and starfish . The deeper areas up to the seabed around the Eddystone Rocks at a depth of 50 to 60 m were examined with cameras.
The observed development including a doubling of the populations of sea anemones and cup corals and a quadrupling of the number of tube worms two years after the ban indicates that it will take 20 to 30 years for the reef to fully recover.
controversy
When defining the limit of the Exclusive Economic Zones in the English Channel, there was controversy over the status of Eddystone Rocks. According to the French definition, they formed a mere shoal that did not justify any territorial claims. According to the British definition, the Eddystone Rocks are only islands washed over by extreme floods , which justifies a territorial claim on the surrounding sea area. The highest point is 60 cm above the mean high tide and 6 cm above the mean spring tide , and the rock was removed by around 1.3 m when the foundations of the first lighthouses were built.
The Permanent Court of Arbitration pointed out in a unanimous decision in June 1977 that France had accepted the British classification of Eddystone Rock as a land point in earlier years.
Individual evidence
- ^ John Smeaton : A Description of the Rocks in their Natural State in An Account of the Eddystone Light-House and rocks , p. 4, HC Creagh, Plymouth 1824
- ↑ Trinity House : Eddystone Lighthouse , accessed August 25, 2018
- ↑ Thomas Moore : Gneiss at the Eddystone in The History of Devonshire from the Earliest Period to the Present , pp. 212, 1829, accessed August 25, 2018
- ^ Plymouth Diving Center: Eddystone , accessed August 31, 2018
- ^ Joint Nature Conservation Committee : Start Point to Plymouth Sound & Eddystone , accessed August 31, 2018
- ^ A b c Marine Conservation Society UK: Eddystone - more than just a lighthouse , accessed August 31, 2018
- ↑ a b Venturecharters: Eddystone Reef , accessed August 31, 2018
- ^ Richard Harrington, Research on seabed beneath Eddystone shows early signs of recovery , Marine Conservation Society UK, accessed August 31, 2018
- ↑ Stephen Fietta, Robin Cleverly: The English Channel and Eddystone Rocks in: A Practitioner's Guide to Maritime Boundary Delimitation , pp. 267-269, Oxford University Press, 2016, ISBN 0191027057
- ↑ SP Jagota: Application of the rules in: Maritime Boundary , page 147, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1985, ISBN 90-247-3133-X