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Sunday 25 September 2022

Abermawr -- the end of the classic exposure?

 



I was down at Abermawr today, checking on the state of play, and I was shocked to see that the "classic" exposure showing a succession of deposits at shore level -- or along the top edge of the storm-beach -- has been destroyed by a massive series of slumps or sediment flows.  You can see them in this image in the centre of the photo.  

There is no longer any clean and in situ exposure of the Irish Sea till which is accessible.  Across about 30m of the face, where you used to be able to examine it, it's now obliterated by tongues of slumped or flowing detritus -- a mixture of Irish Sea till, sands and gravels, colluvium and blown sand, right down to beach level.  The storm beach has also been lowered and transformed from a regular and well organized feature into something rather chaotic.  

I'm not sure why this has all happened, or when it happened, but these are natural processes at work, dependent upon the water content of the sediment sequence, storminess and  wave dynamics.

I think that the Irish Sea till exposures have been thinning for many years, and I fear that once this slump material is swept away (as it will be) there may not be very much of the wedge left for future generations to study........

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