An odd angle on rocks

The beach at Clevedon

These rocks on the beach at Clevedon were laid down hundreds of millions of years ago.

There's an old fault line just a few yards away, a discontinuity where the rocks lie at a different angle. And the rocks in the photo are tilted, you can see the layers clearly.

These layers are accumulations of mud and silt in a shallow sea, turned into relatively hard rock by heat and pressure and long millenia.

It seems extraordinary that sediment can be squished like this, and that rock layers can be upended and tilted. Nonetheless that is what happens given enough time in the churning interior of the Earth over long periods of time.

The recent earthquake in Pakistan created an island. The seabed shifted enough to raise what used to be beneath the sea so that now it's above the waterline. No doubt it may have been slightly tilted as well. Over time a series of such movements can build up significant changes of angle.

What an amazing world we live in!

(If you liked this you might also like Journeys of heart and mind and Quote me on this.)