Digging For Fossils?

[Koss1959]

Anyone had much luck doing so? I visit Charmouth very often so I'd be looking there. Would it be worth digging?

[Taogan]

The whole of the coast around Lyme Regis and Charmouth is an SSSI so has legal protection. You are allowed to collect from the loose material and from the foreshore but any hammering or digging at the cliff is illegal. It is also one of the few places in the country where the protection is taken seriously, so I wouldn't recommend digging in the area.

[Koss1959]

Ok thanks for the heads up. I knew it was illegal to dig into the cliff, but what about at the low tide mark?

[Taogan]

Between the high and low tide mark is a rock shelf most of the way around Lyme Bay, you are allowed to excavate but it is a long job because you are hacking into the rock. Unless you can see something worth getting out speculative digging is just giving yourself blisters because there isn't one continuous fossil bed, fossils are spread out a bit. Most of the rock is shale so it isn't too bad if you have something to show for it, so I would suggest looking for bumps and depressions that indicate a fossil near the surface. For this it is a case of waiting until the tide and the light is right. A falling tide with the sun low in the sky in the morning, You'll know if you are right, you won't be alone. It can take a while to get anything out, even a fish will take a couple of hours and the Ichthyosaur that came out at Christmas took half a dozen people 8 hours. If you find anything, the technique is to cut a slab out and take the whole slab for prepping at home so make sure you can carry it, an extra 20 kilos of rock is difficult to carry for a mile across the beach. The other thing is not to expect too much. Ichthyosaurs and Plesiosaurs are rarely found, even fish are uncommon.