Hope Gap, between Cuckmere Haven and Seaford Head, East Sussex, England.
Commentary.
Where Chalk Downs meet the sea,
sharp eroded cliff edges point seawards
like a giant stone-age flint tool,
of which, they are partly made up.
Leached soil discolours the accumulated fossil cliff.
Trillions of fossilised silicate sea-creatures metamorphosed under pressure to form the familiar “zebra-crossing,” sedimentary bands of black flint.
65 million years of accumulated external shells from foraminifera at the bottom of a warm, tropical Cretaceous Sea
produced the Chalk Downs of England.
Endless piles of rounded flint pebbles and chalk stumps
are testimony to the relentless physical and chemical
destruction of these fossil rocks.
Hundreds of feet of chalk, visible and deeply buried in the Earth’s crust, over thousands of square miles emphasises the stupendous proliferation of such minute protozoic sea-creatures over endless millennia.
Truly amazing!!!
Hope Gap, between Cuckmere Haven and Seaford Head, East Sussex, England.
Commentary.
Where Chalk Downs meet the sea,
sharp eroded cliff edges point seawards
like a giant stone-age flint tool,
of which, they are partly made up.
Leached soil discolours the accumulated fossil cliff.
Trillions of fossilised silicate sea-creatures metamorphosed under pressure to form the familiar “zebra-crossing,” sedimentary bands of black flint.
65 million years of accumulated external shells from foraminifera at the bottom of a warm, tropical Cretaceous Sea
produced the Chalk Downs of England.
Endless piles of rounded flint pebbles and chalk stumps
are testimony to the relentless physical and chemical
destruction of these fossil rocks.
Hundreds of feet of chalk, visible and deeply buried in the Earth’s crust, over thousands of square miles emphasises the stupendous proliferation of such minute protozoic sea-creatures over endless millennia.
Truly amazing!!!