Geology
The rocks of the area are mostly mudstone, deposited in a deep ocean basin some 450 million years ago. Very few fossils are found in the rocks because the sediments were deposited in such deep water. Associated locally with the mudstone are beds of hard sandstone (turbidites); at Poppit Sands these beds are up to a metre or two thick. Deposited as muds and sands on the ocean floor, they were subsequently squeezed and folded by major earth movements, which changed the mudstones into slates. Excellent examples of these folded rocks can be seen at the western end of Poppit Sands.
The last (Eemian) interglacial period, which lasted for some 30,000 years, is sometimes termed the "Poppit Interglacial", the name deriving from Poppit Sands. Here there is a perfectly exposed beach, where it rests upon a classic example of a raised beach platform just above the high-water mark.
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