Book Review

The Official Guide to the Jurassic Coast

(Dorset and East Devon’s World Heritage Coast)
Entitled "A WALK THROUGH TIME"
Edited by Professor Denys Brunsden, published by Coastal Publishing. £4.95,
ISBN 0-9544845-0-9
£1 of the cover price will be used to support the conservation and education programme for the World Heritage Site.

This book is a guide to England’s first natural World Heritage Site, that is known as the ‘Jurassic Coast’. The book contains a Foreword by H.R.H. The Prince of Wales, who on October 3^rd 2002 unveiled two specially commissioned stone markers at Orcombe Point and Lulworth Cove to mark the inauguration of the World Heritage Site.

The site includes 155 km of unspoilt cliffs and beaches from Exmouth in East Devon to Old Harry Rocks in Purbeck. The rocks seen in this stretch of coastline record some 185 million years of the Earths history and as the title says ‘a walk through time’ is possible.

If you start in the west and travel eastwards progress is made towards the present, going through the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous Periods which makes up the Mesozoic Era of geological time, between 250 and 65 million years ago. The book contents take the reader on this journey, starting with information on the Site and Its Management. Then the next chapters cover the geological time periods. Finally the main part of the book gives a brief resume into the main features of the coastline from Exmouth to Old Harry.

It is not a large book, being only 64 pages long, and in soft-back A5 format. But it is a superb example of what can be done, to firstly grab the reader’s attention with the front cover, and then dare you to put it down before arriving at the back one. Every page is in colour, great photographs, and excellent graphics of geological processes and artistic illustrations of the geological time periods.

So who would find this book interesting, my recommendation would be everyone, from tourist, rambler, and amateur geologist to professionals alike. Perhaps the geology is explained a little simplistically, but I defy anyone not to understand it, and that’s what this guide is about, "a taster", a small part of a much bigger picture, get people interested and they will seek more detailed information from other sources.

One such place is the sites web page www.jurassiccoast.com .

Go on have a look, log on today!

Many thanks to Chris Pamplin who supplied the review copy to OUGS Mainland Europe.

Terry Warrington BSc(Open)