RRaised beaches.  These are yet another geological feature I love.

Once upon a time there was a beach.  It was a nice beach, washed by the waves, getting built up and eroded like all beaches do.  Then there was a cataclysmic change in the water levels.  Maybe there was an earthquake or volcanic eruption and the land lifted.  Maybe there was a settling of the ocean floor and the sea level dropped.  The beach was left high and dry, and the sea lapped the ground newly above the waterline.  Another round of beach deposition and erosion took place.

And sometimes it happened all over again.

Raised beaches are fairly common around the UK.  Not all of them are on the coast – Dersingham Bog in Norfolk is a few miles inland and has a lovely cliff that is part of a raised beach group.  You can trace the raised beach all the way to the coast, though.  A lot of the UK’s sea level height changes are down to the retreat of the glaciers: all that ice pressed the surface crust down with its weight, and when it retreated the crust lifted up again.  Now it’s settling once more in the east, and still rising in the west.  Just like a cork bobbing on the waves!

My favourite raised beaches are on Mull.  The place I usually stay is surrounded by them, everywhere you look there is a superb raised bed – a lovely flat, grassy ledge, a few tens to a hundred yards wide, on top of a more or less sheer cliff.  Sometimes they are tiered like wedding cakes.  The ledges are full of bogs and bog plants, and widely grazed by sheep and goats, too.  They make for lovely walks with great sea views – although if you want to change levels, it’s a bit of a scramble!

 Pictures are mine.

 

Raised beaches
Tagged on:             

10 thoughts on “Raised beaches

  • 21 April, 2015 at 10:07 am
    Permalink

    Mull is glorious. Bogs are the bane of my life as far as Scottish walking goes!

    • 21 April, 2015 at 11:08 am
      Permalink

      Oh, yes! And the boots I last wore on Mull’s bogs the day before I left still have a slight whiff about them, despite a washing machine and several years’ treatment!

      • 21 April, 2015 at 11:14 am
        Permalink

        Bogs and tussocks! Forgot about the tussocks.

  • 21 April, 2015 at 3:10 pm
    Permalink

    That’s almost perfect. The beauty and sense of the ocean, but without the sand all over the place 🙂

  • 21 April, 2015 at 3:42 pm
    Permalink

    We have a lot of those, too! So cool to be able to look at the land and see those changes that have taken place (I’m also really into earthquake scarps 😀 )

  • 22 April, 2015 at 6:36 am
    Permalink

    Am really enjoying your A to Z. Interesting theme. 🙂

    Cheers

    MTM

  • 24 April, 2015 at 8:15 pm
    Permalink

    Stopping by from the #atozchallenge 2015! Thanks for visiting me.Congratulations on making it past the first half of the challenge.
    Great post. I’m following you on your listed social media sites.
    J @JLenniDorner

    Those are fantastic images.

  • 17 May, 2015 at 12:41 pm
    Permalink

    Hi Jemima – those photos of Mull’s raised beaches are lovely to see. I didn’t know about the Dersingham one .. but I don’t know Norfolk, nor did I know about Raised Beaches til we had a talk when they came into the subject matter … and I know we have one here on the East side of Eastbourne … when the glacier melt water burst through the Channel into the Atlantic …

    Loving read these – albeit going backwards … cheers Hilary

Comments are closed.

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox

Join other followers: