Beachy Head

While on my recent trip to England, I visited a pier in Eastbourne to enjoy a view of the ocean and experience the cold beaches. During this visit, I ended up walking along a steep cliff face which I later learned was the tail end of the Beachy Head Cliffs. The vast cliff and the chalk sediment layers interested me as I made the walk, and upon returning home I researched the area to learn more about its history. Beachy Head is a cliff face in England by the town of Eastbourne. It is 162m tall in some places, making it the highest chalk cliff on the southern coast of Britain. Due to its height and beauty, this cliff has also made a reputation for itself as the third most common suicide spot in the world. The Beachy Head Chaplaincy Team patrols the area in search of people at risk, and suicide hotlines with phones have been set up in an attempt to stop potential cliff jumpers. The height of the cliffs also poses a risk to other visitors as well. Of the 80 estimated deaths per year at the site, only about 20 of those are suicides. It’s easy for tourists to stand just a bit too close to the edge, and with rock falls being very common, the edge of the cliff is likely to give out when stood on. Although Beachy Head and other famous chalk cliffs on the British coast are known for the many tragedies that are associated with them, they are also known for their beauty and have been featured in many films, television series, and other media marking them as a geological symbol for Britain.

Chalk cliffs form in layers separated by bands of flint, which can be seen in the photo below that I took while visiting these cliffs. Due to the structure of the layers, the bottom slabs of chalk are eroded by waves crashing against them. Eventually the lower slabs will be eroded to the point where the upper layers have no support and collapse.

These chalk rock, or calcium carbonate, cliffs were formed over a period of 30 million years when the area was submerged in a warm subtropical sea, between 95-65 million years ago during the Cretaceous Epoch. Shells containing calcite from billions of microscopic marine algae, called coccoliths, created deposits as they died and sank to the bottom of the sea. These deposits were pressed together by the weight of the ocean and eventually formed the layers of limestone over a thousand feet thick. The cliffs were then uplifted due to plate tectonics and continental movement. Millions of years of erosion due to water has created the modern cliff faces we see today. The surrounding area consists of valleys, ridges, and escarpments that were formed by glacier movement during the last Ice Age. As weathering continues from waves and rainfall the cliffs will continue to shrink inwards and collapse onto each other. These types of cliffs are common on the coasts of southern England, other notable bluffs being Seven Sisters and the White Cliffs of Dover. This location is also a great source of fossils, as the chalk and flint layers contain many different fossils of marine life that once lived in the warm sea that covered the area.
Examples of some fossils that can be found in the area.


These cliffs represent the many different processes that occur on the Earth, such as the formation of sedimentary rocks, plate tectonics, weathering, and fossilization. Due to the beauty and history of the cliffs, Beachy Head has become a location visited by tourists, archaeologists, fossil hunters, and anyone with an interest in what the steep face has to offer.






References

“Chalk Grasslands.” Welcome to the White Cliffs Countryside Project Page - How Was
Chalk Formed?, 4 Dec. 2019,
www.whitecliffscountryside.org.uk/index2.php?id_sec=79&id_sub=3&id_art=215&id_img=.
“Geology and Archaeology.” Beachy Head & Eastbourne Downland,
www.eastbourne.org/tourism/beachyhead/geology.php.
O'Neill, Marnie. “Dark History of Beauty Spot Where Hundreds Have Died.” NewsComAu,
News.com.au, 16 June 2018, www.news.com.au/travel/travel-updates/incidents/dark-history-of-beauty-spot-where-hundreds-have-died/news-story/27720b63cf174316ed3d479f8ca25bf0.
Shimmin, Joe. “Beachy Head.” UK Fossil Collecting, 2012,
ukfossils.co.uk/2012/01/24/beachy-head/.
stanestane. “Beachy Head.” Atlas Obscura, Atlas Obscura, 1 Sept. 2009,
www.atlasobscura.com/places/beachy-head.
Wikimedia Contributors. “Beachy Head.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 26 Nov. 2019,
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beachy_Head.