The last time UKF Visited Durlston Bay, the combination of high water, strong winds and double tides made examining this part of the coastline limited. Due to this limited time, samples were collected and wet sieving took place back at base. A number of Crocodile fragments, small teeth, turtle shell peace's and shells were found.
This year, more time allowed us to explore both ends up to Durlston head and near Pevil Point. Some large peace's of crocodile skin was found, a near complete Turtle Tile Strip, Fish teeth, Scales and fragments, a possible mammal limb bone and a possible bird bone. Finds were made both in the soft freshwater bed and from in the hard rocks on the foreshore. A sharks tooth was also found at Durlston Head.
A new previously unvisited location by UK Fossils, Durlston Bay in search of the mammal beds was made. Officially there is no access down to the beach as the sea hits both headlands and the former path to the beach has been closed due to a major landslide. However access can be made down the landslide which is fine unless any recent rainfall. The signs indicate that the landslip is 'Active' so we would recommend anyone wishing to visit this area to wait until the official footpath has been restored.
We did locate the mammal bed which is a black shale bed between two hard layers roughly in the middle of Durlston Bay. Finds included many fish remains, crocodile and possible turtle fragments and a number of other 'yet to be identified' bones. Shells too were collected.
We took back a large number of samples, four large bags full, these will be wet sieved at a later date, the bones are very fragile but the bed is rich with remains. It has been an exciting day, but it will be sometime before we find the true success of this trip.
