Boulder Beach in Dunedin, New Zealand is a good example of beach where large smooth cobbles and boulders replace the more familiar sand. Strong underwater currents matched with wave power have polished loose bedrock into such forms over a long period of time. This picture is not from New Zealand however-this is from right here…
The Hook Peninsula is composed of many rock types including sedimentary limestone and sandstone. These are considered generally soft in geological terms and over time can be manipulated by chemicals/particles in the water/wind. Here’s a large slab of Red Sandstone around Boyces Bay eerily shaped by time and nature.
The variation in rock type and formation around Hook Peninsula is impressive in relation to the size of the area. Each beach and bay has something different to offer. Here on Booley Bay, the late Cambrian fine-grained sandstones/shale rock strata sweep from almost horizontally to almost vertically and every other angle in between!
Limpets have taken up residence in an almost perfectly round ‘bowl’ hollowed out of the red sandstone by time and nature. Sandeel Bay is full of such features and even larger hollows present are a reminder that large mill wheels, water troughs and other objects were one hewn out of the bare rock. While…
Found this little guy last weekend as I walked on Loftus Bay. He is a fossilised Sponge approximately 340 million years old (Lower Carboniferous). Sponges are marine based animals and would have generally lived their lives attached to the seafloor. Feeding by filtering food particles out of the water through their bodies. When this guy…
Booley Bay is home to some of the most amazing geology on the hook peninsula. Pictured below are Late Cambrian (approx. 500 million years ago) turbidites consisting of sandstones and shales. These rocks would have been deposited in a marine environment at a time when Ireland would have been located close to the south pole…