Sandstone and Sea Stacks, A Beachcomber's Guide to Britain's Coastal Geology (Innbundet (stive permer))

Ronald Turnbull is a geographer and a walker. Author of over a dozen highly regarded walking books and guides, he has won seven awards from the Outdoor Writers' Guild. Ronald lives in Thornhill in Dumfriesshire. To visit Ronald's website click here

Sea Stacks and Sandstone is a celebration of Britain's coastal geology - ammonites and sand, sea stacks and wavecut platforms. It goes paddling in the rock pools to examine the rock samples so perfectly polished up for us by the sea. Between the lichen and the low-tide line, everything is out in the open to be looked at: desert sand dunes emerging out of the ocean; cliffs bent and crumpled by two continents crashing into each other; a band of red-hot basalt squeezed from somewhere in Scotland. Britain today lacks glaciers and volcanoes, but the grand geological earth-shifter we do see is the sea, hard at it around our 6000 miles of coast. And as you wander along the edge of the sand, gradually slowing your eye to the beach-holiday speed of looking at things, you see small creatures, seashells and corals from hundreds of millions of years ago. Real geology isn't looking up the books and memorising long words. Real geology is looking at real rock, and working out what has been happening to it. What Britain is and where it came from, just what's been going on for the last 500 million years: all is revealed, in a continuous slice around our seaside.

Introduction 1 The Sea the Sea scissors paper stone ice, the sidekick 2 Understanding Sand sandstone, siltstone, limestone pebbles on the beach fossils life and times of the ammonite 3 Sediments, Squashed Rocks, Volcanoes stones with stripes 4 Igneous Antrim black bottom rocks 5 Folds mountain excitement crunch times 6 Faults stretches of time that are also times of stretch stones with spots 7 chalk walk calcite 8 Jurassic Coast: Dorset and Devon stones that stop 10 The Other Jurassic Coast: Cleveland Alum money Whitby: the urine economy Scarborough rock 11 Red Sandstone Sandwich 12 Coal Coasts Mountain Limestone meets the sea: Gower Peninsular 13 Greatly controversial Devon 14 Ancient Days The greywacke grindstone Pembrokeshire coast Glossary, Further Reading