Kimmeridge Bay

The rocks at Kimmeridge Bay were once the floor of a deep, tropical sea rich in pre-historic life. They formed in the Jurassic period, 155 million years ago.

The cliffs and foreshore contain a very thick sequence of Kimmeridge Clay. The rock layers are like the pages in a book and the fossils they contain tell a story on each page. Each rock layer provides a window allowing us to look back through geological time. The sequence of rocks here provides such an excellent record of this part of the Jurassic that geologists have adopted Kimmeridgian as the term for rocks of this age all around the world.