Rock Formations at Langland Bay

This post provides a context for the earlier post of mostly close-up images in Rock Textures at Langland Bay 1. Langland Bay is a popular beach near Swansea in South Wales. It is located on the south coast of the Gower Peninsula. It has a wide stretch of lower sandy shore, and pebbles landward in the central part. There are also wide expanses of low-lying rock platforms with hundreds of shallow pools in which to hunt for seashore creatures. To each side of the bay low cliffs of Carboniferous period sedimentary rock are overlain with much more recent glacio-fluvial and later poorly consolidated deposits.

The distinct layers of Hunts Bay Oolite, High Tor Limestone, and Penmaen Burrows Limestone form the southwest limb of the Mumbles anticline that extends from east to west. Here at Langland the sea has breached the rocks to create the embayment. The strata are riven by numerous joints and minor faults that have allowed the sea to penetrate, eroding away the rock to form small coves, undercuts, caves, tunnels, and passages to explore. The photographs shown here probably do not do justice to the site, as it was a very dull and overcast day when I visited, but I hope they serve to illustrate that the geology of Langland Bay is interesting from many points of view.

REFERENCE

Bridges, E. M. (1997) Classic Landforms of the Gower Coast, Series Editors R. Castleden and C. Green, The Geographical Association and The British Geomorphological Research Group, page 17. ISBN1-899085-50-5.