The history of planet Earth is written in the rocks in Lyme Regis (Lyme Regis)

Name: nicola21

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Product:	Lyme Regis
Date:	20/03/01 (120 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Beautiful coastline, good accommodation, excellent for children and adults alike

Disadvantages: None

The beaches are clean, the locals are friendly, the food is excellent, but Lyme Regis holds a much more powerful attraction than the run of the mill beach resort. This particular stretch of coastline is an incredible area for paleontological studies. (Study of extinct life). The cliffs hold secrets from billions of years ago, allowing scientists to build a good picture of life here hundreds of millions of years ago.

It all started in around the 1700's when local girl in her early 20's, Mary Anning was breaking open rocks from the cliffs for evidence of fossil trilobites and ammonites, which are plentiful, and came across the complete skeleton of an icthyosaurus (a sea dinosaur). This was the first of its kind, at least found in England, and suddenly opened up the possibility of other similar fossil skeletons of different species. Lyme, if you like, was the gateway to the hundreds of years of study that followed, and still goes on today.
If you visit the Natural History Museum in Kensington, London, about 60% of all the large fossil skeletons of Plesiosaurs and Icthyosaurs mounted on the wall in the fossil gallery are from Lyme Regis, Dorset. Others are from Street in Somerset, about 30 miles north of Lyme.
Every morning, after the tide has been and gone along the shores of Lyme, especially so in the tiny town of Charmouth a mile or so east, freshly fallen rocks lie on the beach awaiting the eager fossil hunters who come from far and wide to study and collect. Lyme appears to have such rich biodiversity millions of years ago, you never know what you may find.
If you don't fancy taking your hammer and chisel to the beach to find fossils, in Lyme town centre there is a dinosaur museum. It has an excellent and informative display of relics, replicas and the real things and has a good display on local Mary Anning, hailed as the first female paleontologist. There are other various fossil shops which sell everything from small p
ocket guides, to the scientific master works from famous paleontologists. You can buy from an extensive range of beautiful local fossils, from the smallest, to the largest and most impressive.
It's a good place to go for parents to relax and enjoy themselves, whilst the children can enjoy fossil hunting (as most kids do!) and it's educational for them. The best of both worlds and definitely worth a visit even if it's just the once. You may feel drawn back for more....

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