Photo Journal
1st March // A Walk Through Time
Cemaes // N53.419 W-4.451
As part of a new project I am doing, I am retracing the steps of Geologic time right back to the start to see how the rock that North Wales sits upon was formed. The first outing for this is Cemaes bay. Here lies 600 Million Year Old rock, formed during the Pre-Cambrian Period, this was essentially a time before life as we know it existed. Life was basic, no more than single cellular organisms.
The walk itself follows the coast line round two headlands taking in a number of Geological Phenomena such as Limestone Sinkholes, Quartzite Pillars and "Melange” which has recently become somewhat of an obsession to find. A Melange is a mismatch of rock usually formed under unknown circumstances.
In the case of the rock of Anglesey this is formed through an underwater landslide.
As much as I’d love to go into the details of each of these, I will save it for the outcome of this project.
The limestone potholes make for interesting rockpools with their smooth carved out bottoms and seaweed rich pools as the water sits stagnant in them for most of the day.
The first bay is Porth Padrig, a lovely sandy beach at low tide with Iron rich rocks, mostly eroded save for one Pillar of Quartz which stands proud on the beach.
Then finally some Melange! Though not the best example of this in North Wales, it was fun spending the afternoon searching for it, following a very small PDF map I had found with some locations of interesting bits of Geology.
