 |
Tuesday - around Sunderland and South Shields The Tropical Reef when Britain lay in the Tropics. |
||
 |
We visited this fantastic cliff at the back of a housing estate in South Hylton. It is the Permian carbonates sitting on sandstone and Carboniferous rocks. |
||
 |
This site is in the Ryhope railway cutting near the SSI site of Tunstall Hills. | ||
 |
 |
These were fossils of Bryozoans - the first is about 6cm wide and the second about 4cm | |
 |
Lunch at the Marsden Grotto then
viewing the chaos of the cliffs. |
|
|
 |
 |
Two very different views. The carbonate rocks had collapsed into a void when the underlying evaporite was dissolved. Some lands intact - others in a pile of debris (breccia). | |
 |
This young man gave up and moved his tent when 40 students plus totors took over the area - wise man |  |
And here is the contact. The crumpled rocks are the same as the undisturbed rocks underneath |
 |
This is what makes this site so special. Algal mats - Stromatolites that form the Trow Point Bed. This bed is seen throughout the North Sea. They are not as grand as Shark Bay but good enough for me. | ||
