The message
from "Nick Gardner" contains
these words:

Nick,

As a palaeontologist who has spent many years studying this section of
coast, please allow me to correct you on a number of points.

Bit of an odd name really and probably due to the film 'Jurassic Park'.

Not at all, the name was first coined by G.M.Davies in his description
of the Dorset coast in 1935

I say odd because only one section of the 'Jurassic Coast' is actually of
Jurassic age.

Hardly 'odd' as the truly Jurassic part of the section stretches from
Swanage in the east to Pinhay Bay to the west of Lyme regis - with a
small Cretaceous inset around Lulworth Cove.

The coast stretches from Exmouth and runs eastwards to near Swanage in
Dorset and covers the Permian (oldest), Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous
periods, around 500 millions years of continuous geological time and is
quite unique on Earth.

The oldest rocks in the coastal sections are of Upper Permian age,
about 210my old, the youngest rocks are the Upper Cretaceous chalk of
the 'Old Harry Rocks' east of Swanage, dated at 65my old. This is a time
sequence of 145my (million years) and is by no means continuous, there
being many gaps in the sequence. Neither is this sequence unique on
earth, there being many examples covering a much greater time span than
the 'Jurassic Coast'.

HTH

Phil

Kyle of Sutherland
40 miles N. of Inverness
92m ASL