Fossil hunting in Charmouth

As with many new things I try, the explanation can be badges, in this instance it was to start on my Palaeontologist badge with Rebel badge club. And this led to an interesting day.

What should have been a simple hour-long drive from Bournemouth to Charmouth turned into quite an adventure. As we drove along, we soon realised that despite the fact that the distance was decreasing, the ETA on maps was getting later and later, almost stuck at 40 minutes. Once we made it into Brideport, Google asked if we would like to take the route that was 7 minutes quicker, which sounded ideal.

Unfortunately, this turned out to be a route to avoid the traffic caused by an accident, and Google was sending all traffic in both directions along the small single-track roads through the villages. This led to complete gridlock as a dual carriageway’s worth of traffic attempted to travel both ways along single-track lanes. Turning an hour’s drive into three.

Eventually though, we did make it to the popular fossil hunting spot. First things first however,

Lunch.

After enjoying the clear choice of seaside lunch, some chips. We were ready to get kitted out and go hunting. We started off in the Charmouth Heritage Coast Centre, purchasing their adult fossil hunting kit and checking what we should be looking for on their displays. Then it was off to the beach under the ever-collapsing cliffs.

The instructions sounded relatively straightforward. Find a smooth disk-like rock, dark in colour and not marked by your nail. Then hit the edge with the corner of the square edge of your geological hammer. In fact this is easier said than done, and we tried at least 10 different rocks before I decided to use the pointy end, which led to a very satisfying split.
This led to us feeling rather more confident in our use of the hammer, and we were soon able to split many of the rocks we felt fit the specifications we had been given. Unfortunately, that didn’t mean anything was inside.

Our final haul was a tiny fossilised seashell, a small creature who’s name the Fossil warden did tell us but I swiftly forgot, what I believe is just an interesting looking mineral deposit, A very cool stripy rock, a large chunk of beef rock, and what I had hoped would be some sort of Archeological related drill stone, but turned out to be a rock modern sea creatures drill into.