Pebbles with white lines on Charmouth beach

Just some pictures today showing a few examples of the many pebbles and cobble-sized stones on the beach at Charmouth in Dorset which have abstract graphic designs and patterns on them – conferred by thin white lines. The stone is a blue-grey coloured limestone and the white lines are probably crystals of calcite or maybe quartz.

For the top picture, I gathered up a selection of the pebbles as I walked along and then arranged them on the beach to photograph. For the other images, I photographed the seemingly decorated stones where they lay on the seashore. I think that most visitors to this locality are focussed on fossil hunting and probably don’t notice these remarkable marked stones – each one looking hand-painted but in reality a small natural work of art.