Skip to main content

Beacon Hill

All of a sudden, the island exploded.

The glow of molten rock lit up the night, as, with a sound like the cascading of a million marbles, the land slumped into the sea.  Chunks of stone shot into the air as if catapulted by a giant hand, and the ocean writhed as it was pelted by countless burning pebbles.  A great cloud of ash rose up, blackening the stars and blotting out the moon.

After a time, the turmoil ceased, and the island grew quiet again.  The ash settled silently on the surface of the sea.

Slowly, the dust and ash sank beneath the waves.  Down it drifted, down into the deep, and became rock again, pressed against the sea bed.  The feathery forms of ancient creatures fell too, and left their imprint.  Plants?  Animals?  Impossible to know.  Their kind long ago vanished from the earth.

Time passed.  Continents shifted.  Seas rose and fell.  The unstoppable movement of tectonic plates bent the rock, lifted it and shaped it, and finally made it part of a new island.  This one, eventually, was named.  The natives called it Britain.


One sunny Sunday in March, a family walked on Beacon Hill.  The three-year-old and his dad played hide and seek amongst the stacks of craggy rock, and drove toy cars over the warm weathered surface.  Mum found a secluded nook to feed the hungry baby, gazing out over the hazy green fields as he sucked.  A ladybird was discovered ascending the lichened heights, and captured for minute inspection.

Mountaineering.
Inspecting the ladybird.
Ferrari with ladybird brake light.
No, that's not me!
And as we scrambled and clambered and balanced, we had no inkling that we were touching some of the oldest known rocks in the world, formed in such a dramatic way over five hundred and fifty million years ago.

That's a long time!

This is meant to be a face in profile - can you see it?
(For more of the geology and pictures of fossils, see here)
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Greece is the word! Part 2: Epidaurus

For the first part of our Greek holiday, see here . Day 4 - continued After much waiting around, we acquired a hire car and set off for the second part of our holiday. I am so glad that Graham can get into a strange car in a foreign country and drive away with no problems. I would be a nervous wreck. Even Graham was a little spooked by the Athens traffic - very narrow lanes crowded with cars and buses, and mopeds zipping in and out of every available gap. I had left Google Maps set to "avoid tolls", which meant that we stayed off the fancy new highway and took the old road towards Corinth instead. There was practically no traffic, so although it was slower, it felt very relaxed. We passed hills, hotels and oil refineries. Along the way, we stopped at a supermarket for supplies and drank Green Cola at the beach over the road. Crossing the Corinth Canal at Isthmia, we started heading south through the mountains of the Peloponnese. The sky had been growing darker and darker, and...
Post a Comment
Read more

Derwent Valley: Derby City and the Derwent Pilgrimage

It was 8 am and I was already hayfeverish, headachey and hot. Why on earth was I setting out to walk through the middle of Derby, when I could be up in the hills of the Peak District? No one was forcing me to do this section. I could skip it entirely. But I knew I wouldn't, because this was the next part of the Derwent Valley Heritage Way. And besides, I had a suspicion that it would be better than it looked. Alvaston Park was certainly a good start. It's a wide sweep of green grass and mature trees. I used to come here quite often when the boys were small. I was glad to see some of the planets were still there - although Mars has had a lot of feet standing on it, I think. Here's a tiny Toby in 2013 with Mars... ... and a more battered Mars today. Alvaston Park I kept off the roads for a while by following a cycle route. Even when I joined the traffic, it wasn't bad. The factories and office blocks had roses outside. This road, now the A5194, used to be the A6 coming in...
Post a Comment
Read more

Greece is the word! Part 1: Athens

The last few times we have been on holiday, my family has asked, "Mum, are you going to blog about this one?" It's felt like an overwhelming task. For a start, we now have FOUR phones with photos on, rather than one digital camera. Also, I regularly write quite long blog posts about three-hour walks. How on earth will I summarise a full week's holiday? But this time, I thought I should try. It's one of the most enjoyable holidays we've had in a while, and I've definitely done too many Peak District posts recently. Everyone needs a change of scenery. So here we go, jetting off to Athens. Day 1 We landed at Athens airport in a looming thunderstorm, but the worst of the rain held off until we'd made it safely to our apartment. Graham had earmarked a nice little restaurant called Lolos for dinner - eating shell-on prawns in tomato sauce was a deliciously messy experience - and we went to bed early after our 3am start. Day 2 Next day we climbed Philopappos ...
Post a Comment
Read more