Durlston Coastline

The Durlston coastline is one of the best places in Dorset to look at some good examples of coastal erosion and formation. Some of these places are, Durlston bay, Durlston Head and Tilly whim caves.

Durlston Bay.

Durlston Bay is one of the most important localities on the jurrasic coast and one of the richest places to find fossilised, reptiles, fish, insects and mammals of the Lower Cretaceous period (130 million years ago) in the world. on the other hand this is a bad place to look for fossils because such examples are rare and the cliff is prone to rock slides.

Durlston Head.

On the east of Durlston Bay lies Durlston head. It is like a big significant point that tells the sea to change the kind of erosion that it does. On the east side towards Swanage the hard rocks form headlands while the soft rock forms bays. There are many examples of this. Towards the west the hard Portland Limestone gets worn away and forms a big barrier to the sea.

Tilly Whim Caves.

The caves are extensive underground workings for Portland Stone. These used to be open to the public but are now closed due to instability.

Coastal erosion

All over the world there have been bad cases of coastal erosion. This causes countries to shrink very slowly. ways to stop this are as follows.

Reefs.

Reefs are large mounds of rock that is put outin the sea to stop the sand from washing away out to sea. this has a bad effect because it doesn't look very nice.

Armouring.

Armouring is when huge heavy rocks are put on the beach and cover it completely so it takes longer for the sea to erode the coast. The bad effect of this is that it completely covers the beach.

Sea walls.

Sea walls are huge stone walls that can be seen at Weymouth that protect the road from the sea.

Groynes.

Groynes can be seen at sandbanks. They are wooden walls going into the sea to stop sand being swept away along the beach.

The Lulworth coastline

The Lulworth coastline is one of the most famous coastlines in the United kingdom. The cove in it is one of the most perfect coves in the country. There are many other many good examples of coastal erosion in this natural environment such as Mupe bay, the Fossil Forest, Stair Hole, Bats head and Durdle Door.

Mupe Bay.

A huge cliff fall took place here in the Spring of 2000. Huge lumps of rock fell from the chalk cliff onto the land and sea. The chalk cliff here is nearly vertical. The bay formed in a strange shape. On the west side it looks like it would be a cove. On the east side it looks less curved like a bay should.

The Fossil forest.

The Fossil Forest is on a ledge half way up the cliff-face to the East of Lulworth Cove. It consists of lots of doughnut-shaped structures, but no trees. Under this lies a fossil soil, 145,000,000 years old. The fores grew on low lying islands surrounded by small, shallow pools and lagoons. the water levels rose, and thick mats of sticky, green algae grew around the base of the trees that used to be there. Residue stuck to the algae and built up forming the big burs visible today. The hole in the middle of each bur is where the tree once stood.

Stair Hole.

The earliest stage in the fomations of bays and headlands. The hard Portland limestone is just begining to be breached by the sea and softer rocks behind are begining to be eroded away.

Durdle Door.

Durdle door is one of the biggest natural arches on the south Coast. It is very near Lulworth Cove.

Seacombe cliff and close to it.

Seacombe cliff (owned by the national trust) is a large cliff on the south of England. Near it are afew other well known sites, such as, Dancing ledge, Blackers hole, West man and Winspit. The national trust own most of the area betweeen Seacombe and Durlston country park.The Purbeck coastline is part of the Dorset Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) which recognises the importance of the landscape.



Dancing ledge.

Dancing ledge is a famous quarry near Seacombe cliff. The stone here was quarried from the cliff face during calm weather. Today the area is very popular for rock climbing. There are restrictions for climbing in certain parts during sea-bird mating season.

Blackers Hole.

Blackers hole is a large cave (see page stacks caves and arches) in the cliff that was caused by two things. Number one is stone quarrying from humans and number two is erodation from the sea.

Poole Harbour

Poole Harbour is the second biggest natural harbour in the entire world (next to Sydney Harbour in Australia). located between Poole and Purbeck. It is populated quite highly populated near the mouth but as you get deeper in the edge has less and less buildings surrounding it. There are lots of fishing boats that go into the harbour from along the south coast to fish because it is a good place to catch rare fish. Poole harbour also holds the chain ferry, the ferry from Sandbanks to Studland. Sandbanks, on the mouth of Poole harbour, is now officially the world most expensive place to buy a house in the entire world.

There are many islands in it and there are 5 main ones, Brownsea island is the biggest, followed by Fursey island, Green island, Long island and Round island.

Brownsea island is owned by the National Trust and is one of our house teams (i'm in it!) at school. It was founded by Robert Baden Powell, also the founder of all British boy scouts.

Fursey is the second biggest and has an huge oil rig at the centre of it. This is because in the sand under and around the island is masses of oil. It is privately owned and boats cannot land there.

Green island is a very dense island in the Harbour and the third biggest island there. It, like fursey island, is privately owned.

Long island is the furthest in island and the fourth biggest. It is privately owned.

Round island is currently owned by a very rich family and has changed hands many times before. Hardly anyone knows how much it was bought for but everyone thinks it is a lot. It is the smallest and like all the others (exept Brownsea) is funnily enough, privately owned.