History is really cool and in the scope of history humans have existed for 300,000 years but before us the rulers of the world were the dinosaurs who thrived for 135 million years. In my opinion dinosaurs are some of the coolest creatures on earth which we know very little about. A key technique used to learn about the creatures that lived before us is by studying their fossils and nowadays I prop up my bookshelf with a fossil I found on the Jurassic coast while I was travelling in UK with my parents in the summer of 2019.

The Jurassic Coast is a ramous spot for fossils, it is a stretch on the coastline of Southwest England. The entire place is covered in fossils from the Triassic (251m Years Ago), Jurassic (204m years ago) and Cretaceous Periods (142m years ago) which is really long time period from a really long time ago. The place spans 154 kilometres and is a World Heritage Site to protect the remnants of dinosaurs and their descendants.

I visited this amazing site via the town of Lyme Regis which has several cliffs overlooking the sea. The rock faces are made up of sedimentary rocks where fossils are very commonly found. Counterintuitively this spot is best to visit during wind and rain as these conditions churn the beaches exposing more fossils. There are several fossil walks and we chose one managed by the Lyme Regis Museum. The museum displays some beautiful fossils like the one pictured here.

The main attraction was of course the beach littered with fossils. We had some amazing tour guides who explained the history of the location and the information we needed to find fossils. The full team of guides consisted of three people with two to explore with us and a third person who scouted ahead for some interesting fossils. They would let our group of around 20 people around the beach. After maybe 20 minutes of explanations, we were all set loose on the beach. Most fossils we found were those of ammonites and belemnites which were sea faring creatures. I found one of ammonite fossils which resembled a beautiful spiral.

We found a good quantity of fossils, imprints of fossils on rocks and just cool rocks. After the exploration we were all once more assembled to look over some of the most interesting fossils that were found by our lead scout. One of these looked like a large oval rock with the imprint of an ammonite in it. It was caked in mud and may have had another a fossil in it. After the fossil walk ended, we walked back to the museum to rinse off the fossil, finding another ammonite within. Now that discovery stands proudly on my shelf.
The fossil walks along with a stop at Durdle Door and some time at Cotswold were the highlights of this trip to the English Countryside. If the exploration of fossils could keep my eight-year-old mind engrossed, it can keep anyone interested. Check out Lyme Regis for the fossil tours.
So, go and enjoy the Jurassic Coast!