The 'fossil' shells at Marine Lake, West Kirby - 16th Sep 2012 1:16pm
Hi
while walking around the Marine Lake at West Kirby yesterday, we saw white shells incorporated into the rocks that make up the perimiter/walkway of the lake, they were on the Dee estuary side. We wouldn't have called them 'fossils' as the shells were still visibly the white calcium that they are made of. They are shells trapped in solid rock.
And this is what caught my attention: how many thousands of years does it take the sands/sediment/silt to become rock? hundreds of thousand? milions? hundred millions? Yet these shells still hadn't broken down.
I had hoped to have found a web-site that explained these stones but I couldn't find anything after a bit of searching. Has anyone else come upon them? or can tell me about them? Where did the stones that make up and surround this perimiter come from?
Many thanks
while walking around the Marine Lake at West Kirby yesterday, we saw white shells incorporated into the rocks that make up the perimiter/walkway of the lake, they were on the Dee estuary side. We wouldn't have called them 'fossils' as the shells were still visibly the white calcium that they are made of. They are shells trapped in solid rock.
And this is what caught my attention: how many thousands of years does it take the sands/sediment/silt to become rock? hundreds of thousand? milions? hundred millions? Yet these shells still hadn't broken down.
I had hoped to have found a web-site that explained these stones but I couldn't find anything after a bit of searching. Has anyone else come upon them? or can tell me about them? Where did the stones that make up and surround this perimiter come from?
Many thanks