Days Out: Visiting The Jurassic Coast

Here at Dimpsey Glamping we are so lucky to be close to some of the most beautiful, historic and interesting places in the world. One of those places is the Jurassic Coast.

The Dorset and East Devon Coast, more commonly known as the Jurassic Coast, was made a World Heritage Site in December 2001 for its geology and geomorphology – its rocks, fossils and landforms. The 95 mile stretch of cliffs is the only place in the world where you can see a continuous story of over 185 million years of the Earth’s history, including the entire Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous geological periods. The Jurassic Coast is England’s first natural World Heritage Site.

The rocks of the World Heritage Site are laid out from oldest to youngest moving west to east. This is a little unusual because these layers of rock would have originally formed one top of the other, and if they had stayed like that we would have to drill deep into the Earth to see them. Something truly epic must have happened to allow us to see these layers in continuous sequence along the coast.

The ‘Great Unconformity’ is a time gap between rocks of different ages and runs right across the World Heritage Site. It was created when the layers were tilted and eroded 100 million years ago. The late Cretaceous rocks lie directly on the eroded surface of the Triassic, Jurassic and early Cretaceous. So the walk through time is a little more complex: because both the oldest and some of the youngest rocks in the site are found in East Devon.

Only 30 minute drive from our Dimpsey Hut we are a great place to stay if you are looking to visit this area, you can read more about the Jurassic Coast here: http://jurassiccoast.org/