Marske

L had to finish off a bit of work so I went out for a walk on the beach Walked as far as Marske - almost two miles away. Collected a bit of 'sea glass' and a couple of fossil shells. It turned out they were a sort of extinct oyster officially called Gryphaea but colloquially known as  'Devil's Toenails'. The Redcar coast is apparently one of the best-known places in the world to find them. Although they are found across a fair range of the geological record they are mostly from the Triassic and Jurassic eras. The ones I found are probably from the early Jurassic period - between 175-200 million years old. Wikipedia says there used to be a common folk belief that carrying one of these fossils could prevent rheumatism.