Dudley's Geological Heritage

Diagram of Geological areas

"In no part of England are more geological features brought together in a small compass than in the environs of Dudley"

-Sir Roderick Murchison, 1849.

Dudley, 420 million years ago, lay in the middle of a tropical sea.

Corals

Millions of corals and other sea creatures were born, had young themselves and died in the warm waters of this ocean that is now Dudley.

Reefs

The corals created giant reefs and the shells of the fish, as millions of years went by, turned into limestone.

Swamp

120 million years ago the sea bed rose, turning Dudley into a swamp !

Water consistently drowned the trees that grew & under constant pressure, they eventually became coal.

Dudley's Geological Heritage - Land form

Land forming

The great techtonic plates that the continents 'float' on met each other in a cataclysmic crash that buckled the land Dudley is built upon.

Dudley's Geological Heritage - Formation of land

Formation of land 1

Over many millions of years the mountains that were created were worn down through glaciation and weathering.

Formation of land 2

Man has helped this process by quarrying away the rock, thus rediscovering the fossilised ancient reefs and sea creatures.

Some day, millions of years in the future, the rocks will return to the sea.

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