Pendower Beach combines a Devonian coastal section with much older fossil-bearing quartzite carried into the rocks as large blocks. The eastern shore offers elusive brachiopod impressions, while the raised beach and folded bedrock reward a careful geological visit even when fossils are scarce.
FIND FREQUENCY: ♦♦ – Sparse, often inconspicuous impressions; this is a patient observation locality rather than a reliable source of numerous specimens.
CHILDREN: ♦ – The sandy beach and the uneven eastern fossil shore have very different demands. The rocky extension is unsuitable for young children.
ACCESS: ♦♦♦♦♦ – Established beach access from Pendower and Carne; reaching the eastern rocks adds tidal, slippery and uneven ground.
TYPE: Cliffs and foreshore; older quartzite blocks within Devonian rocks, with separate Quaternary coastal deposits.
DIRECTIONS
♦ Pendower lies in Gerrans Bay, east of St Mawes. From the A39 take the A3078, turn towards Veryan and follow the signed roads to Pendower or Carne. The final lanes are narrow.
♦ Use the National Trust car parks: Pendower, TR2 5LW, grid reference SW897382; or Carne, TR2 5PF, SW905383. These are parking references, not the positions of fossil beds. Follow the current payment and parking signs.
♦ The western access gives the shorter approach to the raised-beach exposures. Carne is nearer the eastern rocky shore. The two sandy beaches join at low tide; do not depend on a shore route remaining open as the tide rises.
♦ The original guide gives locality reference 50.206324, -4.944019. Keep the sandy-beach return route in view and allow a generous tidal margin when examining rocks beyond the eastern end.
FOSSIL HUNTING
The eastern quartzite blocks are the main source of the shell impressions described in the original guide. Quartzite is a very hard, quartz-rich rock, and fossils are easiest to recognise on naturally weathered, irregular surfaces. Look for a coherent curved shell outline and fine radiating ribs; a shallow, fingernail-like hollow may be all that survives. Oblique light and a little water on a stable surface can make the relief easier to see. Concentrate on accessible surfaces and small loose pieces only where removal is permitted, rather than moving heavy blocks or breaking hard rock.
The old identification Orthis sp. is best treated as a historical brachiopod label. A worn mould cannot normally be assigned confidently to a genus in the field. Rare trilobite-like impressions were also reported in the original guide, but their identity needs specialist examination. Photograph any convincing segmented or ribbed specimen with a scale and its surrounding rock before attempting preparation. Quartz veins, cleavage and weathered mineral textures can imitate shell edges.
These quartzites contain older, Ordovician material incorporated into the Devonian Roseland Breccia Formation. A fossil in one of the blocks therefore dates the block, not the mudstone around it. Do not mix such finds with fossils from the Devonian bedded rocks simply because they lie close together on the shore.
The western part of Pendower also has a genuine Devonian plant record. Plant debris and coal-like pieces occur on sandstone surfaces in the Portscatho Formation. Dark films deserve careful inspection, but staining alone is not enough to identify a plant. The holotype of the fossil wood named Dadoxylon hendriksi, GSM48661, is catalogued from the shore west of the stream. This is an important historical specimen, not a promise that identifiable fossil wood will be found on an ordinary visit.
The Pendower Formation contains scientifically useful microscopic fossils: conodonts in limestone and radiolaria in chert. These chiefly require specialist study and should not be confused with easily collected large shells. Leave the limestone, chert beds, raised-beach profiles and any exposed submerged wood intact. Record the rock type and position of an observation, and distinguish a loose block from a fossil seen in place.
A chronological record of fossil discoveries, geological research and site history at Pendower Beach.
1818 – Carne quartzite recognised as foreign material
S. J. Trist drew attention to the contrast between Carne quartzite and the surrounding rocks, an early observation behind the later interpretation of transported older blocks.
1832 – Early description of the coastal deposits
Boase described the Gerrans Bay slope deposits, beginning the published study of the younger sequence now exposed at Pendower.
1907 – Cold-climate origin of the head explained
Reid interpreted the angular coastal rubble as frost-shattered material moved downslope during cold conditions, a foundation for the later periglacial interpretation of the Pendower deposits.
1910 – Raised-beach shells reported
Rogers reported shells from the raised-beach deposit, despite other descriptions treating it as unfossiliferous. The historical disagreement remains relevant to interpreting this younger coastal sequence.
1929 – Fossil wood formally described
William H. Lang described Dadoxylon hendriksi. Its holotype, GSM48661, is recorded from the shore west of the stream at Pendower; 1929 is the description date rather than a verified date of discovery.
1944 – Submerged forest record documented
Robson’s account included the submerged forest beds along the Pendower coast. This is a published record, not evidence for the unverified exact age previously assigned to them.
1973–1974 – Limestone fossils establish Devonian age
Conodont work by Sadler and Leveridge helped establish the Middle Devonian age of the Pendower limestone-bearing succession. This was central to separating the age of the bedded rocks from that of older blocks farther east.
1980–1981 – Raised beach and cold-climate deposits examined
Stephens and Sims, followed by James, developed detailed accounts of the shore platform, raised beach and overlying slope deposits. Their work made Pendower an important section for reconstructing changing coastal conditions.
1985–1996 – Raised-beach dating and correlations reconsidered
Scourse developed interpretations of the dune sand and head, with tentative luminescence evidence raising the possibility that the underlying beach was older than a simple last-interglacial assignment. The local chronology remains uncertain.
1986 – Geological coast protected
The Gerrans Bay to Camels Cove protected site was notified in its revised form on 27 June, recognising the scientific importance of this coastal area.
1990 – Pendower type section and thrust described
A detailed geological memoir set out the Pendower Formation and its relationship with the Portscatho rocks across the Veryan Thrust.
2008 – Eastern formation relationships clarified
A revised geological account explained the Carne succession and the older quartzite rafts incorporated into the Roseland Breccia, improving interpretation of the eastern shore.
GEOLOGY
The shore is not a straightforward walk from younger rocks into an undisturbed older succession. Devonian sandstone and mudstone were deposited in a marine basin, folded and cleaved, and displaced along major thrusts. The Veryan Thrust brings the older Pendower Formation against the younger Portscatho Formation at the western end of the Pendower section. It is a tectonic contact, whereas the transition upwards from Pendower into the Carne Formation farther east is sedimentary.
The Pendower Formation alternates slaty mudstone with sandstone, limestone and chert. Sand and carbonate debris arrived in sediment-laden flows, while the chert records siliceous microscopic life in the basin. The Carne Formation records further sand deposition, slumping and sedimentary breccia. Farther east, the Roseland Breccia includes large pieces of older rocks, including the conspicuous Ordovician quartzite near Carne. Their presence explains why fossils of very different ages can occur within this short coastal area.
Much later, waves cut platforms across the steep Devonian rocks. Raised-beach gravel, wind-blown sand and cold-climate slope debris accumulated above that eroded surface. These younger deposits record changes in relative sea level and climate rather than a continuation of the Devonian sequence. The precise ages of the raised-beach beds remain debated. Submerged forest remains are a separate, intermittently exposed feature and should not be assigned an unverified local age.
Detailed geology and stratigraphy of Pendower Beach, including the limits of local correlation.
The following account separates the faulted Devonian bedrock from the younger coastal deposits. It describes Pendower–Carne and the eastern quartzite extension of this guide; it is not a measured continuous log or a route onward around Nare Head.
GRAMSCATHO GROUP
The formal parent group of the local Devonian formations. Their present arrangement includes thrust juxtaposition and reworked older blocks.
Portscatho Formation
Sandstone and slate west of the Veryan Thrust represent turbiditic deposition. At Pendower, plant debris in the upper part includes coal-like rafts up to 0.2 m across on sandstone tops. The regional formation thickness is not a thickness exposed in the beach cliffs.
Veryan Thrust
The shore contact is recorded at SW8971 3802. It juxtaposes the Pendower and Portscatho formations, placing older rocks structurally over younger ones. It must not be drawn as an ordinary depositional boundary or an unconformity.
Pendower Formation
This Eifelian unit has its type section at Pendower. The quoted approximately 430 m is structural thickness, not the height of one cliff or an undeformed vertical section. Slaty mudstone contains interbedded sandstone, limestone and chert. No formal local members are recognised in the cited sources.
Chert-rich lower interval
Chert is especially prominent in the lower part. A horizon of deeply weathered basic-igneous lenticles occurs at SW8996 3816. This local observation does not establish an exposed pillow-lava unit on Pendower Beach.
Sandstone and slaty-mudstone rhythms
Sandstone forms graded laminae and beds up to about 0.3 m, lenses and small channel fills. Some coarser lenses cut across the beds beneath and contain limestone and chert cobbles, recording erosion and redeposition within the basin. Slump folds, disrupted beds and isolated blunt-ended sandstone bodies also show sediment instability. These primary features need to be distinguished from the later cleavage and tectonic fragmentation.
Limestone turbidites and the historical Veryan Limestone
Individual limestone beds reach about 1 m, with amalgamated packages up to 2 m. Thicker turbidites can pass upwards from a massive, normally graded base through parallel lamination to a locally developed cross-laminated top; some have basal fine breccia. Thin beds can form original isolated lenticles separated by calcareous mudstone. These differ from beds pulled apart tectonically, where quartz and carbonate veins fill the separations. The carbonate-rich upper interval was historically called Veryan Limestone, not a separate modern member. Its debris includes crinoid and shell fragments.
Conodont evidence and historical identifications
The memoir reports a conodont assemblage dominated by Polygnathus, with subordinate material listed as Ozarkodina, Bryantodus, Angulodus, Prioniodina, Hindeodella and Icriodus. These are the published historical identifications, not a fresh taxonomic revision or a list of large beach finds. The assemblage supports a middle–late Eifelian age for the limestone-bearing succession.
Radiolarian chert
Composite chert units reach about 0.3 m, built from individual laminae and beds less than 1 mm to about 0.03 m thick. Some grade from darker bases to grey tops. Radiolarian remains are concentrated towards the bases and commonly stretched or flattened along cleavage. This siliceous microscopic record differs from the transported carbonate and sand debris in the turbidites.
Carne Formation
The eastern continuation succeeds the Pendower Formation conformably and in turn passes conformably into the Roseland Breccia at the promontory on the north-west side of Pennarin Cove. The adjoining Gerrans Bay section has lower channelised sandstone, breccia, central slumped sandstone and mudstone, and upper sandstone turbidites. The reported structural thickness of up to 240 m is a formation-scale estimate, not a measured thickness of the precise collecting shore. The separate Portholland channel measurements are not transferred here.
Gerrans Bay breccia interval
The approximately 14 m breccia has sedimentary contacts. Its lower approximately 3 m contains large rafts of Pendower-type limestone in pale mudstone; above are darker mudstones with limestone and sandstone lenses, quartzite and schist fragments, and microbreccia. These are transported clasts, so their fossil ages can differ from the deposit containing them.
Carne Formation fossils within transported limestone
A Machaerocanthus fish spine was reported by Hendriks from a clast near the base of the breccia. Conodont evidence dates some transported limestone to the Emsian and some to the late Eifelian; material of Givetian aspect was reported from a limestone bed or elongate lens near the top. These differing records must not be treated as a single age for every clast.
Roseland Breccia Formation
Mudstone-rich sedimentary breccia encloses older blocks. The quartzite crags towards Carne belong to an approximately 0.5 km-long raft. Ordovician fossils in this material do not turn the enclosing Devonian succession into Ordovician bedrock. No named local member or secure species-level quartzite fauna is imposed.
The following numbered beds are descriptive divisions of the Pendower coastal account, not formal members of the Devonian formations. Thicknesses are local maxima and need not occur together in one exposure.
Compound shore platform and unconformity
Two wave-cut levels cross the inclined bedrock, with the higher surface often buried. The gravel rests above this erosional break. Some large platform boulders are local rock; their size alone does not establish that they are glacial erratics.
Bed 1: raised-beach conglomerate, up to 3 m
Rounded pebbles and cobbles, especially quartz with some slate, sit in a sandy matrix locally cemented by iron and manganese oxides. The deposit rests on the lower platform and may incorporate material reworked from the slope deposits near its top. Although several descriptions called it unfossiliferous, Rogers reported shells in 1910. That disputed historical record neither guarantees shell finds nor establishes the bed’s precise age.
Bed 2: dune sand, up to 2.5 m
Cross-bedded wind-blown sand overlies the raised beach but is locally hidden by slope wash. The GCR account reports a tentative thermoluminescence result of 165–252 thousand years from this sand, sample QTL-466, based on Southgate’s unpublished work as discussed by Scourse. This prompted an older-than-Ipswichian interpretation for the underlying beach. It is not a secure exact age for either the beach or the complete succession; James had favoured an Ipswichian beach interpretation.
Bed 3: head, locally about 12 m
Angular local shale, slate, grit and vein-quartz fragments form variable slope deposits, with finer silt and sand lenses. Coarse blocky lower head commonly passes into finer head above; at one described point a sand interval with sparse rock fragments separates two head beds. The upper roughly 0.5–1 m commonly consists of finely broken, sharp-edged shale and slate. Frost disturbance and ice-wedge casts occur in the upper parts. These lateral and vertical differences rule out a single uniform rubble layer.
Bed 4: upper silty sand, up to 0.5 m
The thin cap has been interpreted as loess or slope wash. Keep those interpretations open. Submerged forest remains along the shore are a separate record, not a fifth bed with an assumed 3,000-year age.
References
BGS Lexicon: Pendower Formation
Leveridge, Holder & Goode (1990), Geology of the country around Falmouth, BGS Sheet 352 memoir
Leveridge (2008), Geology of the Mevagissey district, BGS Sheet 353 explanation
Campbell (1998), Pendower, in Quaternary of South-West England, GCR 14
BGS Lexicon: Gramscatho Group
BGS Lexicon: Carne Formation
BGS Lexicon: Roseland Breccia Formation
SAFETY
The eastern rocks are jumbled, uneven and crossed by deep pools and slippery surfaces. They are quite different from the sandy family beach. Wear footwear with reliable grip, avoid jumping between blocks and do not climb or undermine unstable cliffs.
Check tide times and the swell forecast before setting out. Work with a low or falling tide and a generous return margin; seeing the sea advance is not a substitute for keeping a clear exit. Do not round an exposed headland or rely on access farther towards Nare Head.
EQUIPMENT
A camera, hand lens, tide information and grip-soled footwear are the most useful equipment. Carry only small protective boxes and wrapping for loose material that you are permitted to take. Hard quartzite is unsuitable for casual hammering, and a hammer is not required for an observation visit.
CLEANING AND TREATING
Keep a shell mould in its quartzite matrix rather than trying to release it. Begin with gentle dry brushing; avoid acid, bleach, powered preparation and routine varnish. Support any fragile slate or plant film and allow wet material to dry gradually. Potentially significant material should remain unprepared until examined by a specialist.
IDENTIFY YOUR FINDS
Need help identifying a fossil? Share clear photos, where you found it and its size with the community.
FURTHER READING
National Trust: Carne and Pendower visitor information
BGS Lexicon: Pendower Formation
Leveridge (2008), Geology of the Mevagissey district, BGS Sheet 353 explanation
Leveridge, Holder & Goode (1990), Geology of the country around Falmouth, BGS Sheet 352 memoir
Campbell (1998), Pendower, in Quaternary of South-West England, GCR 14
BGS Palaeosaurus: Dadoxylon hendriksi holotype GSM48661
ACCESS RIGHTS
The coast lies within Gerrans Bay to Camels Cove SSSI. Use the established public beach approaches and follow current National Trust and local notices. Public access does not itself authorise fossil removal.
Observe and photograph the exposures. Do not excavate profiles or hammer cliffs and bedrock; take small loose pieces only where the landowner’s current rules permit it. The protected-site management guidance is not blanket permission to collect.
Original guide’s designation document (historical copy; check current notices and the official site record above): SSSI Information – Pendower Beach
It is important to follow our ‘Code of Conduct’ when collecting fossils or visiting any site. Please also read our ‘Terms and Conditions‘
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