Timelines, time, lines.
Lines that allude to a time between, a time before, a time to come.
Lines are ever present,
and tellers of time.
fresh air, sunshine and curiosity
Crisp, calm mornings are beautiful, they provide a perfect opportunity to get outside and up close with my local coastal geology. I return here again and again, there is always something new to discover and space to ponder the vast timescales on display all around.
In this picture I’m once more drawing amongst a raised Patella Beach, next to a wave-cut platform. Both of these date from the Eemian period 120,000 years ago and sit some 5m above the current sea level.
clear as crystal
Wandering the coastline of Gower I’m drawn to the unassuming, sometimes grubby looking, white stuff welded amongst the limestone rock - because it is a mineral with a secret.
Read Moreprediction?
Drawing at Rhossili, sitting above a 125,000 year old limpet shell….
Embedded within a remnant of the ‘Patella’ beach to which it lends its name, the shell is held fast by ‘natural cement’ (precipitated limestone / calcium carbonate). This raised beach fragment is a relic from earth’s last warm period (interglacial) when the sea level was much higher than today - but temperatures were almost the same. A probable indicator of what is to come, perhaps in the next few hundred years, should global CO2 levels not fall below current levels.
revelation
Stormy seas and turbulent winds frequently strip sand from around Gower’s coast. Winter storms exacerbate a constant cycle of wearing away and putting back, allowing buried rock to be unmasked for a short while before being engulfed by sand once more.
Barnacle-free and pale in colour this ‘clean’ rock stands out from that which sits above it. Such exposure provides much to explore and a brief opportunity to connect momentarily with unusual and intriguing finds….
These fossil shells embedded in the limestone at Pobbles bay, probably coloured by iron, look remarkably like cave paintings.
