Landscape Story
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2 SETTING THE SCENE NORFOLK COAST GUARDIAN 2009 Landscape story f you think geology is just today. It created the nationally and in- The answer lies in finding a bal- sure the magic of the place endures. Geology rocks! about rocks, and Norfolk is a ternationally protected landscape we ance between our needs and those of Working as a team, we look after Take a closer look at what flat, unchanging landscape, all love. And the changes that made nature, and working together. this area of outstanding natural made our coast, and look Ithen prepare to be amazed. In the coast then are ongoing - this dy- Natural processes are inevitable beauty – one of our country’s most out for my fun facts this year’s Guardian we reveal the in- namic place is always shifting and and even desirable. Marshland, for ex- treasured areas. 2009 marks the 60th credible ‘backstory’ of the coast, from moving, and home to many creatures ample, is one of the best forms of anniversary of the government’s de- the magnificent glaciers of the ice that rely on this flux. flood defence; more sustainable than cision to make sure these areas were ages to the giant worms of warmer Of course it’s home to people too, concrete walls which cost a fortune protected for everyone (read more on We hope you find this edition of our times, when dinosaurs lived and a and we need stability. But how can a to install and maintain. page 10). annual newspaper interesting and very famous elephant died – and was viable future for the communities of The Norfolk Coast Partnership So whether you live in the area, useful – and it reveals to you some- eaten by hyaenas – at West Runton. the coast and its visitors co-exist with exists to bring together the organisa- visit it regularly, or are here for the thing of the elemental forces which It may seem a long time ago, but the ever-present and powerful influ- tions and communities of the coast to first time, the partnership is working shape and continue to influence our what happened then is still relevant ence of the sea on soft lands? find long-term solutions to make to protect the Norfolk Coast for you. tranquil haven. THE NORFOLK COAST PARTNERSHIP YOUR NORFOLK COAST GUARDIAN... The Old Courthouse, Baron’s Close, Fakenham, Norfolk NR21 8BE T: 01328 850530 F: 01328 850546 E: [email protected] W: www.norfolkcoastaonb.org.uk 3-9 GEOLOGY SPECIAL Norfolk Coast Partnership staff Funding Partners Experts from Norfolk and beyond explain Manager: Tim Venes Natural England the coast from the ground up Policy and partnership officer: Norfolk County Council Estelle Hook North Norfolk District Council 10-11 NEWS UPDATE Communications officer: Lucy Galvin Borough Council of King’s Lynn Celebrate protected areas 60th anniversary Community and external funding & West Norfolk plus latest news, DVD and book reviews officer: Kate Dougan Great Yarmouth Borough Council Technical assistant: Steve Tutt 12-13 MAP AND TRANSPORT Articles available in large print: please contact Bus services, heritage railways and cycle hire 01328 850530 or via website www.norfolkcoastaonb.org.uk 14-15 COAST KITCHEN Historic Wells harbour's future; tasty seafood recipes and local goodies guide 16-17 WILDLIFE Help keep tracks of some unusual coastal species – and stop the invaders! 18 OUT AND ABOUT Plan a circular walk on the National Trail with our handy mile calculator 19-23 EVENTS Check out nearly 500 great events 23 KIDS KORNER Have a go at our tricky crossword NORFOLK COAST PARTNERS Natural England Country Land & Business Association Norfolk County Council National Farmers Union North Norfolk District Council Norfolk Farming and Borough Council of King’s Lynn Wildlife Advisory Group & West Norfolk Parishes Representatives Great Yarmouth Borough Council AONB Common Rights Holders Broads Authority Wells Harbour Commissioners Environment Agency The Wash and North Norfolk Coast English Heritage European Marine Site Management Scheme Norfolk Wildlife Trust Wash Estuary Strategy Group National Trust Peddars Way and Norfolk Coast RSPB Path National Trail The Norfolk Coast Guardian is published by BC Publications on behalf of the Norfolk Coast Partnership Editor: Lucy Galvin Designed and produced by: BC Publications 01986 834250 Printed by Mortons Print Ltd Every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy of the information in this publication. However, the publishers can accept no responsibility for any effects arising there from. Views expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the Norfolk Coast Partnership member organisations. All material copyright Norfolk Coast Partnership 2009. NCP 03/09 – 60K Cover: Walkers at Weybourne on the Norfolk Coast Path National Trail © Natural England. Andy Tryner NORFOLK COAST GUARDIAN 2009 GEOLOGY SPECIAL 3 Come with us on a journey through and beyond time to see how this dynamic place was made – and continues to evolve – in our seven page special feature Ground force The landscape looks too big to move, but monumental forces over millions of years shaped the Norfolk Coast we know today. Jenny Gladstone explains how. Illustration by Jo Spaul. ere in Norfolk we sit on ended with one of the largest mass Scotland, sand from the North Sea, so powerful that it sometimes the most complete se- extinctions in earth history. chalk from the Wash; all were crushed plucked huge chunks of chalk from quence of chalk in Britain. So what lies above the chalk? to ‘flour’ under the weight of the ice the sea bed and carried them along HWhat we lack in the drama About one and a half million years that was sometimes up to two kilo- too. dropped in great gravel mounds and of the massive white cliffs of Dover, ago the North Sea dumped beds of metres thick. From Weybourne to Happisburgh outwash ‘aprons’ along the ice edge. we make up for in chalk diversity; loose sands, shells and gravels called Ice sheets behave like giant, one the sea has since eaten away at these The Cromer Ridge and Kelling you can touch the oldest (Red ‘crags’ as it encroached and retreated way, conveyor belts, continually mov- glacial tills, forming cliffs that show, Heath likely grew just this way, their Chalk) at the base of the Hunstanton from the east. Mostly they are not ing outwards from their growth re- in spectacular fashion, the thickness, sands and gravels pouring out of the cliffs in the west, and walk over the well exposed at the coast, but you can gion, towards the margins where they variety and contortion of the glacial front of a decaying ice wall. As the youngest (Maastrichtian Chalk) at investigate the ‘Wroxham Crag’ at melt. Often Norfolk found itself at deposits, whilst the chalk ‘rafts’ are geologists say, ‘everything was Trimingham in the east. Weybourne – it lies above the chalk, these melting fringes, so the debris dramatically displayed in the cliffs be- brought to Norfolk.’ Further east still, it dips away forming a fossilised stony beach carried by the ice was spread in suc- tween West and East Runton. below sea level, so that if you follow perched part way up the cliff. cessive layers of glacial ‘till’ or ‘boul- Under and through the ice sheets Jenny Gladstone is convenor the coast round to Winterton, you Chalk and crag were just the prel- der clay’. flowed powerful melt-water rivers. of the Norfolk Geodiversity need to dig over 100 metres down in ude to the last powerful force that Where an ice sheet passed over Often constrained by the ice walls Partnership and treasurer for the order to reach chalk rock. constructed Norfolk’s landscape, and sand it left sandy tills behind, and about them, they gushed along at Geological Society of Norfolk The chalk was laid down over a this time the agent was ice. The suc- where it passed over chalk it left great pressure, until released at the Jo Spaul is a local artist and period of 35 million years. It’s the cession of ice ages that have come chalky-clay tills. When an ice sheet edge of the ice sheet. There, the rocks illustrator remnants of minute sea creatures that and gone for the last 6-700,000 years encountered the debris of the one and boulders that had tumbled lived and died in the shallow seas or so, generated vast, thick, ice sheets before, it frequently pushed and against each in the flow, were until - about 65 million years ago - that ground their way from the north shoved and contorted the tills, so that the warm climate, vast seas and and from the west and brought much untangling their sequence and age is dinosaurs of the great Cretaceous era of Norfolk with them. Rock from a major undertaking. And the ice was 4 GEOLOGY SPECIAL NORFOLK COAST GUARDIAN 2009 Wilderness on our doorstep: The grandeur of eroding cliffs on the Buried treasure Trimingham – Sidestrand beach. of earth’s history From gems to fossils, earth science detectives can find all sorts of exciting clues to the past. Martin Warren explains where to look. ave you ever found a fossil A far-travelled and wondered what its erratic rock, world was like, millions of freshly plucked Hyears ago? Or looked at from the cliff, folded rock formations in a cliff and was scratched marvelled at what colossal forces and facetted caused those contortions? Then you on its journey were thinking like a geologist. The to Norfolk inside Norfolk coast is a good place for the a glacier. earth science detective because it obligingly shows us the layers where the clues are buried.