By: Blonde Two
Just before Harry the Dog died he got a touch of dementia and started staring at walls.
People must have thought that about me the other day because whilst I was waiting for my swimming friends I was staring at the sea wall. I remember ‘stand by the wall’ being a shameful punishment at primary school (I can also remember boys, always boys, disappearing into the headmaster’s office to face other, more mean punishments).
This was, however, a particularly fascinating sea wall to be staring at because it is made, quite creatively, out of two different types of stone. I am reliably informed that these are grey Devonian limestone and red Permian breccia (which has bits of limestone in it). I am particularly fond of Devonian limestone because our house is built out of it. The ‘Devonian’ refers to a time not a place (although the name came from research done here) so I guess our house and the sea wall are both built out of Devonian, Devonian Limestone. Breccia is a mixture of lots of bits of angular rock and can be all sorts of colours as well as red. Permian is also a geological period.
What is even more exciting about this sea wall, and the reason I was staring at it, is that it is home to some interesting fossils. There are some stromatoporoids (which is a name to envy) who were once lime-secreting sponges living happily in Torbay’s Devonian reefs and also some corals and other fossils.
I had a great time looking for them and I think I found some interesting things. We need our sea wall so I didn’t take any souvenirs. It all just goes to show, you don’t know what is out there until you Get Outside and open your eyes!
The heading photo with the embedded rocks reminds me of Rriglos, a spectacular location in Spain where I climbed. Climbing was of a similar nature with pebbles embedded in red clay – the pebbles at Riglos were rounded contrasting with your sharp and angular ones. At first it was terrifying using the pebbles as holds because you thought they would dislodge, but they seemed to stay well embedded. I have scanned the only photo I have in its picture fame so reproduction is woeful. the crag you see is 300/400ft. high and our route is shown with the red dots. If you Google Riglos you will see more spectacular pictures of the larger, steeper, and more pointy crags there – very intimidating but well climbed on.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ohfy2e3hplmnm20/Riglos.jpg?dl=0
I have now taken a photo of the photo in its frame rather than scanning with a much better result.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/17at7hsl42ldao0/Riglosreduced.jpg?dl=0