Warden Point, Sheppey

3/17/2010

Warden Point, on the Isle of Sheppey, England, is said to be a great place to find shark teeth. Normally found among the shingle, the shark teeth are dark in colour, and are easy to miss. The eroding coastline uncovers the London clay, with about 1 million years worth of sedimentary deposits from the Eocene era, aproximately 50 million years ago. At the time of the sedimentary deposits, the area was about 100m under water.

Unfortunately, on this visit I didn't find any shark teeth, but there were other interesting things on the shore.

One of the things you can find on the beach at Sheppey is a Septarian nodule. These are round spheres of yellow calcite. The photo on the right illusturates one of these that has been stained red by iron oxide on the inside.

Some of these Septarian nodules contain barite crystals, which can be seen in the photo to the left. To get to the crystals, the nodule has to be smashed open, either by hammer and chisel, or by the more fun method of hurling them against another rock.

I also found a pyritised twig. My next trip should be to Folkstone, so we shall see what treasures await me there.

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