Lyme Regis is a town in West Dorset, England, 25 miles (40 km) west of Dorchester and 25 miles (40 km) east of Exeter. Styled "The Pearl of Dorset", it lies at Lyme Bay on the English Channel coast at the Dorset–Devon border. It is noted for fossils found in cliffs and beaches on the Heritage Coast or Jurassic Coast – a World Heritage Site. The harbour wall known as "The Cobb" appears in Jane Austen's novel Persuasion, in the John Fowles novel The French Lieutenant's Woman, and in the 1981 film of that name, which was partly shot in the town. A former mayor and MP was Admiral Sir George Somers, who founded the English colonial settlement of Somers Isles, now known as Bermuda. Lyme Regis is twinned with St George's, Bermuda. In July 2015 Lyme Regis also joined Jamestown, Virginia in the Historic Atlantic Triangle of Lyme, St George's and Jamestown. The 2011 Census gave the parish and electoral ward a population of 3,671.
The Jurassic Coast is a World Heritage Site on the English Channel coast of southern England. It stretches from Exmouth in East Devon to Studland Bay in Dorset, a distance of about 96 miles (154 km), and was inscribed on the World Heritage List in mid-December 2001.
The Chalk Group is the lithostratigraphic unit which contains the Late Cretaceous limestone succession in southern and eastern England. The same or similar rock sequences occur across the wider northwest European chalk 'province'. It is characterised by thick deposits of chalk, a soft porous white limestone, deposited in a marine environment.
The Gault Formation is a geological formation of stiff blue clay deposited in a calm, fairly deep-water marine environment during the Lower Cretaceous Period. It is well exposed in the coastal cliffs at Copt Point in Folkestone, Kent, England, where it overlays the Lower Greensand formation, and underlies the Upper Greensand Formation. These represent different facies, with the sandier parts probably being deposited close to the shore and the clay in quieter water further from the source of sediment; both are believed to be shallow-water deposits.
Chideock is a village and civil parish in south west Dorset, England, situated close to the English Channel between Bridport and Lyme Regis. Dorset County Council's 2013 estimate of the parish population is 550.
Dorset is a county in South West England on the English Channel coast. Covering an area of 2,653 square kilometres (1,024 sq mi); it borders Devon to the west, Somerset to the north-west, Wiltshire to the north-east, and Hampshire to the east. The great variation in its landscape owes much to the underlying geology which includes an almost unbroken sequence of rocks from 200 Ma to 40 Ma and superficial deposits from 2 Ma to the present. In general the oldest rocks appear in the far west of the county, with the most recent (Eocene) in the far east. Jurassic rocks also underlie the Blackmore Vale and comprise much of the coastal cliff in the west and south of the county; and although younger Cretaceous rocks crown some of the highpoints in the west, they are mainly to be found in the centre and east of the county.
The Early Jurassic epoch is the earliest of three epochs of the Jurassic period. The Early Jurassic starts immediately after the Triassic-Jurassic extinction event, 201.3 Ma, and ends at the start of the Middle Jurassic 174.1 Ma.
The Undercliff is the name of several areas of landslip on the south coast of England. They include ones on the Isle of Wight; on the Dorset-Devon border near Lyme Regis; on cliffs near Branscombe in East Devon; and at White Nothe, Dorset. All arose from slump of harder strata over softer clay, giving rise to irregular landscapes of peaks, gullies and slipped blocks, that have become densely vegetated due to their isolation and change of land use. The Kent coast at Folkestone and Sandgate also has similar undercliff areas.
The Purbeck Group is an Upper Jurassic to Lower Cretaceous lithostratigraphic group in south-east England. The name is derived from the district known as the Isle of Purbeck in Dorset where the strata are exposed in the cliffs west of Swanage.
The Charmouth Heritage Coast Centre is based in the upstairs floor of a long-disused cement factory on the foreshore of Charmouth in Dorset, England.
The Blue Lias is a geologic formation in southern, eastern and western England and parts of South Wales, part of the Lias Group. The Blue Lias consists of a sequence of limestone and shale layers, laid down in latest Triassic and early Jurassic times, between 195 and 200 million years ago. The Blue Lias is famous for its fossils, especially ammonites.
Promicroceras is an extinct ammonite genus from the upper Sinemurian of Europe, named by Leonard Spath in 1925. Promicroceras is included in the family Eoderoceratidae, which is part of the ammonitid superfamily Eoderoceratoidea.
The Spittles is an area of coastal cliff in the county of Dorset on the south coast of England. It is situated between the settlements of Lyme Regis to the west and Charmouth to the east. It forms part of the Jurassic Coast, a World Heritage Site designated in 2001. The cliff contains layers of Blue Lias and clay; in wet seasons the clay causes the layers above to become saturated and hence landslips occur, exposing many fossils. Mary Anning famously found an Ichthyosaurus in the Spittles.
Dinosaurland Fossil Museum is a privately owned fossil museum in Lyme Regis, on the Jurassic Coast in Dorset, England. The museum is located in a historic Grade I listed former congregational church building.
Monmouth Beach is a pebble and rock beach stretching approximately 1 mile (1.6 km) from the harbour at Lyme Regis, West Dorset to Pinhay Bay, East Devon. It is part of the Jurassic Coast, situated below Ware Cliffs, and includes Poker's Pool, Virtle Rock and Chippel Bay.
Dorset is a county located in the middle of the south coast of England. It lies between the latitudes 50.512°N and 51.081°N and the longitudes 1.682°W and 2.958°W, and occupies an area of 2,653 km². It spans 90 kilometres (56 mi) from east to west and 63 kilometres (39 mi) from north to south.
Cephalopod egg fossils are the fossilized remains of eggs laid by cephalopods. The fossil record of cephalopod eggs is scant since their soft, gelatinous eggs decompose quickly and have little chance to fossilize. Eggs laid by ammonoids are the best known and only a few putative examples of these have been discovered. The best preserved of these were discovered in the Jurassic Kimmeridge Clay of England. Currently no belemnoid egg fossils have ever been discovered although this may be because scientists have not properly searched for them rather than an actual absence from the fossil record.
