This is Worbarrow Bay on Dorset's Jurassic Coast UK
- almost 7 years ago
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The cliffs behind Worbarrow Bay expose a sequence of Cretaceous rocks. These range from the chalks at the northwest end of the bay, at Cow Corner, that are between 85 and 145 million years old, through to the hard stone outcrop in the east. The sediments that form the peninsula are Portland limestones, which is 150 million years old, and the Purbeck Beds, 147 million years old.
The cliffs and the tout have distinctive angular layers of rock that visibly demonstrate the complex sedimentary folding that affected this area some 30 million years ago. The foldings were caused by tectonic pressures as the African and European continents collided. At that time the cliff sediments were twisted horizontally and that is why the younger chalks are found towards the rear of the bay and the older sediments face the sea at the front of the bay.