Physical Features
The cliffs are composed of a red Permian and Triassic sandstone about 200 Million years old. St Bees sandstone was created by water borne sand and has a very small grain size, making it a very workable stone still much in demand for building. The mica in the stone gives it a sparkling effect. St Bees sandstone occurs as far north as Brampton, but it is named after its most prominent outcrop here at St Bees.
The SSSI citation carries a description of the interesting geological features. On the headland itself is evidence of erosional features, wave cut notch and a wave-cut platform. On St Bees Beach to the south to lessen the effects of longshore drift, a row of nine groynes have been put in place.
Further south, St Bees Beach is backed by small mud cliffs which are an excellent place to study the glacial moraines that formed them. The shingle both at St Bees and Fleswick bay show a huge variety of glacier-borne stones.
Read more about this topic: St Bees Head
Famous quotes containing the words physical and/or features:
“I hope I may claim in the present work to have made it probable that the laws of arithmetic are analytic judgments and consequently a priori. Arithmetic thus becomes simply a development of logic, and every proposition of arithmetic a law of logic, albeit a derivative one. To apply arithmetic in the physical sciences is to bring logic to bear on observed facts; calculation becomes deduction.”
—Gottlob Frege (1848–1925)
“However much we may differ in the choice of the measures which should guide the administration of the government, there can be but little doubt in the minds of those who are really friendly to the republican features of our system that one of its most important securities consists in the separation of the legislative and executive powers at the same time that each is acknowledged to be supreme, in the will of the people constitutionally expressed.”
—Andrew Jackson (1767–1845)