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Monday 17 February 2014

Even more exposures at Newgale


This is a splendid photo from Barrie Foster, showing the foreshore at Newgale as it is at the moment.  Thousands of tonnes of sand have been stripped off the beach and taken out into deep water -- and the result is an extraordinary expanse of pebbly substrate with considerable expanses of peat with some tree remains.

A good time to go and see it.  Before too long -- if we now get some calmer weather -- it will be covered up again with sand.

NB  The "submerged forest" is not necessarily composed of trees and branches.  in most of the exposures I have seen, there is more peat than forest.  Age -- probably for the most part Mesolithic.  That was when the inundation around the coast occurred.  That having been said,  beneath the surface peat there are Palaeolithic materials -- going back to the Devensian glacial deposits that can be seen in some bays and in Nevern Estuary in Newport.

1 comment:

TonyH said...

'NB The "submerged forest" is not necessarily composed of trees and branches.In most of the exposures I have seen, there is more peat than forest.'

At Borth, Cardiganshire, the subject of a very recent Post [headed Ynyslas], I have noted the BBC News website reporting a peat fire just behind those Borth buildings along the sea front. The fire material was peat, and it burned for many days.