At Blast Beach, south of Seaham, waves rework old colliery spoil beneath pale Permian cliffs. The shale and sandstone brought up during mining contain Carboniferous plant fossils, including leafy fragments, stems and pieces of larger trunks, making this a distinctive place to explore the area’s coal-mining past.
FIND FREQUENCY: ♦♦♦♦♦ – Plant remains are common in suitable loose shale and sandstone, although exposed material changes as the sea moves the spoil.
CHILDREN: ♦♦♦ – Suitable for closely supervised older children able to manage a steep descent and rough beach; keep clear of cliffs, spoil edges and pools.
ACCESS: ♦♦♦ – Nose’s Point has pay-and-display parking. The official beach descent is steep, rough and unsuitable for wheelchairs.
TYPE: Loose mine-spoil rocks and modern foreshore material south of Nose’s Point; the natural Permian cliff is a separate geological exposure.
DIRECTIONS
♦ Seaham lies south of Sunderland and is readily reached from the A19. Follow the A182 towards Nose’s Point at the southern end of the town.
♦ Use the pay-and-display car park at Nose’s Point on East Cliff Road, SR7 7PS. From the A182, continue past the first parking area to the Nose’s Point car park.
♦ Follow the coastal path south to the pond and the official stone-pitched descent to Blast Beach (NZ 43546 47164). The descent is steep and rough, and is not suitable for wheelchairs.
♦ Do not use the older descent nearest the car park; the National Trust advises that it should no longer be used. Follow signs on the ground and return by the official route.
♦ The collecting shore extends south from Nose’s Point towards Chourdon Point. There is no need to round either headland. Check the tide and sea conditions before descending.
♦ Locality reference: 54.823251, -1.3230050.
FOSSIL HUNTING
Before removing even loose fossils, check current restrictions and obtain the owner’s or manager’s agreement. If permission is unclear, photograph finds and leave them in place. Search the loose material on Blast Beach, south of Nose’s Point. The mine spoil includes mudstone, shale, siltstone and sandstone from many underground layers. Wave action exposes fresh pieces but also rounds and abrades them, so the best collecting patches can shift between visits. Concentrate on loose slabs with visible plant marks and on naturally opened bedding surfaces, rather than digging into the compacted spoil bank or approaching the natural cliff.
Plant fossils are the main attraction. In fine-grained shale, look for flattened dark stems, branching fragments and delicate leaf impressions. A low angle of light helps reveal faint relief and the veins in a leaf. Several different fragments may occur together on a single slab, recording vegetation washed into quiet water. Keep the surrounding rock and, where a slab has separated naturally, retain both halves: the impression and its counterpart may preserve different details.
Larger stems and trunk fragments occur in the coarser rocks and among loose foreshore pieces. Examine their surfaces for regular ribbing, repeated leaf scars or root attachment marks, but do not identify every dark rounded lump as fossil wood. The large specimen displayed at Nose’s Point is a club-moss trunk identified as Sigillaria. It provides a useful introduction to the vegetation of the Coal Measures, although the display is a protected visitor feature and should be left untouched.
Some of the hard red rocks described by earlier collectors contain clear plant impressions. Search their already weathered faces before attempting any preparation. Their colour does not prove that they all came from one particular “Red Band”, and some red or porous fragments on the beach are industrial waste. True plant fossils show recognisable organic patterns; glassy, bubbly or irregularly slag-like textures alone are not evidence of a fossil.
Shell fossils occur too. The non-marine bivalve Anthracosia sp. has been recorded in a Blast Beach spoil boulder. Look for paired, gently curved outlines and growth lines on finer-grained surfaces. These freshwater or low-salinity Coal Measures shells should be distinguished from marine fossils in pale Permian dolomite. A loose specimen’s matrix, dimensions and find position are worth recording even when its exact original bed cannot be recovered.
At the southern end of the locality, a small natural exposure north of Chourdon Point has yielded a different assemblage: Permian bryozoans, brachiopods, bivalves and gastropods. Historic records include Crurithyris clannyana, Stenoscisma schlotheimi and Bakevellia antiqua. This is geological context for understanding loose pale rocks, rather than an invitation to work the cliff or a promise that the old exposure remains visible. A normal visit can focus on identifying and photographing plant-bearing loose material. Take specimens only after confirming the current restrictions and the owner’s or manager’s agreement.
Significant discoveries and dated milestones
1855–1865 – Industry reshapes Nose’s Point
A blast furnace, ironworks, bottle works and chemical works developed around Nose’s Point. Waste from these activities introduced artificial material to the shore before the main phase of twentieth-century coal mining, helping to explain the mixture of industrial debris and natural rocks found on the beach today.
1907 – Dawdon Colliery opens
The opening of Dawdon Colliery began a long period of mining beneath the Permian cover and the North Sea. Raising the coal also brought large quantities of fossil-bearing shale and sandstone to the surface, providing much of the material later redistributed along Blast Beach.
1925 – Upper limestone beds distinguished near Nose’s Point
Charles Trechmann identified a small patch of thin-bedded limestone south-west of Nose’s Point with the beds then known as the “Filograna Beds”. This helped distinguish a younger possible outlier from the main dolostone cliff; its modern assignment to the Seaham Formation remains qualified.
1957 – The artificial storm beach is documented
W. A. Westgate described the large bank of Coal Measures shale and sandstone south of Nose’s Point and its effect on the coast. His work showed how mine waste, moved and piled up by waves, shielded the older natural cliff from direct marine erosion.
1967 – Detailed coastal beds and fossils recorded
A geological resurvey documented the soft dolomite marker bed and changing breccias towards Chourdon Point, together with a small fossil-rich marine outcrop at the foot of the cliffs. The detailed descriptions separated the natural Permian succession from the much younger accumulation of industrial waste.
1990 – The Chourdon fauna prompts a shallow-water interpretation
Further work on the brachiopods of the Chourdon shell bed drew attention to species consistent with shallow water. The evidence refined interpretation of this small marine exposure, which had previously been described chiefly in relation to the neighbouring Permian reef.
1991 – Dawdon Colliery closes
Dawdon Colliery closed in July, ending its period of coal production. The spoil already present on the shore continued to be worked by waves, leaving a changing collecting resource of Carboniferous fossils among the remains of an industrial landscape.
1994 – Tiny fossils help assess the upper-cliff outlier
A published resurvey account reported Calcinema in the small limestone outlier south-west of Nose’s Point, providing support for its identification as Seaham Formation. The conclusion remained provisional, and no underlying evaporite residue was visible in the local cliff section.
1997–2002 – Coastal restoration improves the former coal coast
The Turning the Tide partnership removed derelict industrial structures and rubbish and improved access and habitats along the Durham coast. At Blast Beach, the recovery of the landscape made its mining legacy and natural geology more accessible, while much of the old rock-waste platform remained in place.
2014 – A fossil tree returns to Nose’s Point
A fossil tree donated from Dawdon Community Centre was installed at Nose’s Point. The preserved trunk became a public reminder of the ancient Coal Measures vegetation and of the miners who brought such specimens up from underground.
2017 – Shoreline change is measured through the mining era
Research comparing historical maps, aerial photographs and beach surveys quantified the advance and subsequent retreat of the spoil beach. It showed that the present shoreline remains a changing product of industrial tipping and marine erosion, with consequences for the exposure of the natural cliff behind it.
GEOLOGY
Seaham’s collecting beach brings together rocks of very different ages. The Carboniferous shale and sandstone were deposited in rivers, lakes and wetlands long before the pale Permian cliffs formed. They lie underground in the local coalfield, but mining brought them to the surface and tipping placed them in front of the younger bedrock. Their position on today’s beach therefore tells a story of extraction and transport, rather than their original order in the Earth.
The plant-bearing rocks belong to the Pennine Coal Measures Group. Sand accumulated in channels and other areas of stronger water movement, while finer mud settled in quieter water and preserved leaf and stem impressions. Peat formed where vegetation accumulated in wet ground and was eventually compressed into coal. Repeated changes in sediment supply, subsidence and water level produced many cycles of these deposits. The spoil mixes fragments from different cycles, which is why two adjacent beach stones may contain very different fossils.
Most of the natural cliff behind Blast Beach is Roker Formation dolostone, part of the Permian Zechstein Group. Carbonate grains and mud accumulated in a warm shallow sea, and later chemical changes converted much of the rock to dolomite. Near Chourdon Point, older fossil-rich Ford Formation beds are also recorded at the cliff foot. Dissolution of buried evaporites allowed the overlying rocks to settle and fracture, helping to create the conspicuous breccias towards the headland.
A small patch of younger-looking, thin-bedded limestone survives high in the cliff south-west of Nose’s Point. Fossils support a possible Seaham Formation identification, but the correlation is not certain. The large, well-known Seaham Formation and Seaham Residue exposures beside the harbour lie farther north and are a different geological section. They should not be used as a measured log for the plant-collecting beach.
Glacial deposits cap parts of the natural cliff, while the modern shoreline is dominated by the remains of the waste platform and by material reworked from it. The accumulated spoil once pushed the beach seawards and protected the old cliff from waves. With no continuing supply from the mines, erosion is gradually removing and redistributing that artificial buffer. This produces changing collecting conditions and leaves a mixture of natural rock, fossils and industrial debris along the foreshore.
Detailed geology and stratigraphy
This section covers the beach south of Nose’s Point towards Chourdon Point. The fossil-bearing mine waste, the natural Permian cliff and the glacial cover have different origins. They cannot be combined into one measured vertical succession: mining brought older rocks up from depth, and the sea subsequently mixed and redistributed them. The individual exposures described below are historical records, so their visibility will change with beach levels and erosion.
PENNINE COAL MEASURES GROUP
The Carboniferous component of the spoil belongs to the Pennine Coal Measures Group. It formed in a low-lying tropical landscape of rivers, delta channels, floodplains, lakes and peat-forming wetlands. Repeated changes in water level and sediment supply produced alternating sandstone, siltstone, mudstone, rooted soils and coal. At Dawdon the workings followed coal beneath the Permian cover and out under the sea; those underground rocks are represented here by displaced fragments. Cooper and colleagues reported that the Dawdon disposal sites received waste from Dawdon, Hawthorn, South Hetton, Seaham and Vane Tempest collieries. A beach specimen therefore cannot be presumed to come solely from Dawdon Mine.
Plant-bearing shale and siltstone in the spoil. Fine-grained grey or dark slabs preserve flattened stems, small leaves and leafy fragments, sometimes with several plant remains on one surface. The fossils are most readily examined on natural bedding planes. This is a productive rock category within mixed spoil, rather than one traceable numbered bed: a beach find generally cannot be assigned to an individual coal seam or a precise level in the mine.
Sandstone blocks and larger plant casts. The beach also contains sandstone and pieces of larger plant axes or trunks. Coarser sediment can preserve three-dimensional casts where finer mud preserves compressed plant material. The displayed club-moss trunk at Nose’s Point, identified as Sigillaria, illustrates the sort of large vegetation that grew in the Coal Measures wetlands; it was brought up during mining and is an interpretation feature, not a tree fossil rooted in the present beach.
Red plant-bearing rocks. Hard red rocks with well-preserved plant impressions occur among the loose spoil. Colour alone does not establish their source seam or geological level, and the collecting label “Red Band” does not identify a demonstrated formal stratigraphic unit. Look for a recognisable fossil surface before deciding whether a loose fragment is worth examining further; hard red industrial debris on the same beach may have no fossils at all.
Non-marine shell-bearing spoil. A boulder examined on Blast Beach in 2012 contained the Coal Measures bivalve Anthracosia sp. These mussel-like shells are non-marine fossils associated with the wetland and freshwater parts of the succession. Their occurrence does not identify a marine band, and the loose boulder has no demonstrated connection with a particular named coal seam.
ZECHSTEIN GROUP
The pale natural cliffs are part of the Permian Zechstein succession, deposited long after the Coal Measures. Shallow tropical seas produced carbonate sediment, while more restricted conditions led to evaporite formation. Current BGS definitions give the formal Ford, Hartlepool Anhydrite, Roker and Seaham units broad Guadalupian–Lopingian age ranges, spanning Middle to Late Permian time; these are not precise dates for individual local horizons. Much of the carbonate was converted to dolomite after deposition. Later dissolution of the evaporites caused overlying beds to subside and break into angular fragments, producing the collapse breccias seen towards Chourdon Point.
Seaham Formation: a small, uncertain outlier
At NZ 4360 4770, about 300 m south-west of Nose’s Point, approximately 3.5 m of thin-bedded limestone occupy a shallow syncline at the top of the cliff. These beds contain Calcinema and lack the conspicuous concretions of some Seaham Harbour exposures. They have been assigned to the Seaham Formation, but that identification remains unconfirmed. No underlying Seaham Residue is visible here.
Roker Formation
The main pale cliff succession along Blast Beach belongs to the Roker Formation, historically called the Roker Dolomite or included within a broader “Middle Magnesian Limestone”. Its cream dolostone contains fine carbonate grains and locally recognisable ooids, together with traces of cross-bedding. Recrystallisation has changed some rock to a sugary texture and has obscured parts of the original sedimentary fabric. The old coastal survey recorded about 120 ft (36.6 m) of broadly even-bedded, gently undulating dolomite along the northern part of the Nose’s Point–Chourdon stretch; this is a historical local succession estimate, not the height of every present cliff.
Soft cream dolomite marker bed. A conspicuous soft cream dolomite bed was recorded as 10–15 ft (3.0–4.6 m) thick and traceable southwards for several hundred yards along the northern part of this coastal section. It is a useful lithological distinction within the otherwise rather uniform bedded dolostone. The published account does not give it a formal bed name or a distinctive fossil assemblage.
Breccia lens north-west of Chourdon Point. A clearly defined lens of angular broken rock was recorded near the cliff base between about 700 and 515 yd (640–470 m) north-west of Chourdon Point. It is a local body of breccia, rather than a bed that can be assumed to continue unchanged throughout Blast Beach. Its thickness was not specified.
Increasing brecciation towards Chourdon Point. About 125 yd (114 m) beyond the southern end of that lens, the bedded, sugary dolostone begins to show stronger break-up. Brecciation intensifies towards the headland. At Chourdon Point, hardened and recemented breccia contains fragments up to 8 ft (2.4 m) across; this figure is a clast size, not a bed thickness. Later movement on several normal faults shattered parts of the rock again, producing a second generation of breccia.
Hartlepool Anhydrite Formation: dissolution residue
The former evaporite interval below the Roker rocks survives at the coast chiefly through the effects of dissolution. Residue of the Hartlepool Anhydrite has been recognised at Chourdon Point, supporting the explanation that removal of soluble beds allowed the overlying carbonates to founder. There is no sound basis for drawing the original offshore anhydrite thickness into a present-day Blast Beach cliff section. This residue belongs to an older evaporite cycle than the Seaham Residue.
Ford Formation: fossiliferous beds north of Chourdon
Older reef-related dolomite is recorded at the foot of the cliffs in the small bay immediately north of Chourdon Point, at NZ 4416 4686. It belongs to the Ford Formation interval and forms a small, low dome of rock older than the largely barren dolostone above. The exposure is separate from the Carboniferous plant-bearing spoil, and its fossil assemblage records marine animals.
Fossil-rich dolomitic calcarenite. The published exposure is about 25 yd (23 m) long and 8 ft (2.4 m) high. It consists of brown, thickly bedded to massive dolomite made largely from broken skeletal grains. Much of the rock is porous and friable. Recorded fossils include the bryozoan Fenestrellina retiformis; brachiopods Crurithyris clannyana, Orthothrix excavata and Stenoscisma schlotheimi; a gastropod identified as Straparollus sp., explicitly distinguished from S. permianus; and the bivalves Bakevellia antiqua, Permophorus cf. costatus and Streblochondria pusilla. These are the 1967 memoir’s historical identifications and qualifications.
Hard central mass within the shell bed. An irregular harder mass measuring about 2½ ft (0.76 m) was described near the centre of the friable fossiliferous outcrop. It was interpreted as a possible piece detached from the former reef front to the west-south-west. That explanation remains an interpretation; the mass should not be drawn as an additional continuous limestone bed.
The environment of the Chourdon shell bed. The early survey interpreted this fauna as contemporary with part of the main reef-building phase. Later study drew attention to inarticulate brachiopods recorded as Lingula credneri and Discina konicki, together with Neochonetes sp. cf. N. davidsoni, and suggested a shallow-water setting. The same thesis list includes ?Streptorhynchus pelargonatus, ?Heteralosia quarringtonensis, Bakevelia ?antiqua, Strophalosia ?excavata, Permophorus costatus, Crurythyris clanyana (the majority of specimens) and Fenestella retiformis. These names and question marks follow the thesis’s historical usage, which differs in spelling and certainty from the 1967 memoir. An unpublished proposed species is not thereby an accepted taxonomic name. This is a useful refinement of the environmental interpretation, rather than evidence for a second beach bed or a direct correlation with the plant-bearing colliery waste.
A tentative thesis specimen with different provenance. Leman’s 1990 thesis also discusses a tentatively identified Heteralosia? quarringtonensis specimen with a possible Chourdon locality, but gives NZ 4425 4650 and a broader Raisby-horizon attribution on page 109. That record differs from the north-Chourdon shell-bed locality and does not establish a local Raisby Formation exposure. The thesis gives Old Quarrington Quarry as the type locality for its proposed species; the tentative Chourdon record does not establish local type provenance. The name is reported as a proposal in that unpublished thesis.
Anticline flanks and calcareous breccia. Westgate’s 1957 description of the fossiliferous anticline at Chourdon records calcareous veins developing along its flanks. The rock grades into calcareous breccia with powdery dolomite. This is a local structural and lithological transition rather than an additional measured fossil bed.
A possible old coastal erosion surface. The 1967 Survey memoir notes a possible remnant of an old marine-planation surface above Chourdon at about 95 ft OD, approximately 29 m above Ordnance Datum. No marine sediment was found there. The figure is a landform elevation, not a bed thickness, and the interpretation does not establish a proven raised-beach deposit.
Quaternary glacial cover. Glacial till and associated meltwater deposits overlie parts of the Permian bedrock. They contain material transported by ice and water and belong to a much younger phase of landscape development. Their thickness and visibility vary along the cliffs. The glacial cover is discontinuously exposed, and no single thickness applies along the whole collecting shore.
Modern spoil platform, storm beach and lagoons. Industrial tipping and subsequent wave sorting built the raised strip of mixed mine waste in front of the natural cliff. This platform has sheltered parts of the limestone face from direct wave attack, while erosion of its seaward edge now releases more shale and sandstone. Rain and seawater can pond behind uneven waste ridges; dissolved iron produces conspicuous rusty staining in some pools. These modern deposits and their colour bands record industrial and coastal processes, not a simple succession of named Carboniferous beds.
Historical shoreline advance, 1861–1967. Cooper and colleagues’ 2017 reconstruction records approximately 150 m of seaward shoreline advance at Blast Beach between 1861 and 1967. This is a dated horizontal change associated with accumulated mining waste, not the thickness of the spoil or a measure of today’s beach width.
Further shoreline advance, 1967–1985. Between 1967 and 1985, the same reconstruction records a further approximate 115 m of seaward advance. This later phase describes continued alteration of the artificial shoreline and is distinct from the earlier 150 m interval.
Shoreline retreat, 1985–2016. For 1985–2016 the study records a maximum retreat of about 75 m, with approximately 40 m in the central part of the bay discussed in its text. These are spatially variable, historical horizontal retreat distances; they do not state the position of the present shoreline or the thickness of any rock unit.
Surveyed spoil-edge retreat at transect 1bSH2. At transect 1bSH2, the study describes about 20 m of spoil-edge retreat and roughly 25 m of residual spoil-platform width at the time of the surveys. Its text refers to 2008–2015, while Figure 11 plots surveys labelled 2009, 2013 and 2015. The different date labels are a source inconsistency; these measurements describe that transect and observation period, not current conditions across the whole beach.
References
Smith, D. B. and Francis, E. A. (1967). Geology of the country between Durham and West Hartlepool.
Smith, D. B. (1994). Geology of the country around Sunderland.
BGS Lexicon: Roker Formation.
BGS Lexicon: Ford Formation.
BGS Lexicon: Hartlepool Anhydrite Formation.
BGS Lexicon: Pennine Coal Measures Group.
Westgate, W. A. (1957). Some aspects of the geomorphology of the Durham coast. Durham University thesis.
Leman, M. S. (1990). Permian productidina of Britain and Malaysia. Durham University thesis.
Cooper, N., Benson, N., McNeill, A. and Siddle, R. (2017). Changing coastlines in NE England: a legacy of colliery spoil tipping and the effects of its cessation.
Roberts, D. H. (2024). Reading the Rocks: Blast Beach introduction.
BGS Lexicon: Seaham Formation.
River Tyne to Flamborough Head Shoreline Management Plan2, February2007.
Natural England: Durham Coast SSSI citation, 1999 revision.
JNCC: Durham Coast Special Area of Conservation.
SAFETY
Use the official descent south of Nose’s Point, not the older route nearest the car park. Wear footwear with good grip: the stone-pitched path is steep and rough, and the loose beach rocks can move underfoot. Keep children away from exposed edges and allow time for the climb back.
Check tide times and the sea forecast. Waves reach the headlands, and a narrow-looking passage may disappear as the tide rises or the swell increases. Do not round Nose’s Point or Chourdon Point to extend the visit, and leave before your return route becomes difficult.
Keep well away from the natural cliff, overhangs and undercut spoil faces. Falls and small slips can happen without warning. Avoid the coloured pools, wet fine waste and unstable edges of the raised spoil platform; do not treat former industrial ground as a safe place to paddle or scramble. Sharp metal, glass and other debris may occur among the stones.
EQUIPMENT
Bring sturdy boots, a hand lens, a camera, a small scale and a notebook for recording finds. Paper, small bags and a rigid box help support thin plant-bearing slabs. Carry tide information and a charged phone, but do not assume reception will be reliable beneath the cliffs.
Many fossils can be examined and photographed on naturally loose surfaces without tools. Confirm permission before removing even loose finds; if it is unclear, leave them in place. Any specifically permitted work on a small loose block needs eye protection and plenty of space from other people. Avoid splitting large blocks on the beach or striking intact cliffs, bedrock and compacted spoil.
CLEANING AND TREATING
Keep plant-bearing slabs supported and protect the thin carbon films and impressions. Allow wet specimens to dry slowly at room temperature, keeping loose fragments together. A soft brush is often sufficient; repeated soaking, strong scrubbing or drying beside a heater can cause shale to split and shed its fossil surface.
Retain the matrix around stems and leaves, and keep matching counterparts together. Hard red rocks and sandstone may break through a fossil as readily as around it, so leave difficult specimens for careful mechanical preparation under magnification. Avoid acids, bleach, household varnish and routine coating. Reversible consolidation is appropriate only when a specimen is genuinely unstable and the treatment has been chosen for its particular rock and fossil.
Label finds as loose colliery-spoil material from Blast Beach unless their original geological position is genuinely known. Record the date, matrix and a photograph before preparation. Leave unusual or potentially important material unprepared and seek specialist advice.
IDENTIFY YOUR FINDS
Need help identifying a fossil? Share clear photos, where you found it and its size with the community.
FURTHER READING
Roberts, D. H. (2024). Reading the Rocks: Blast Beach introduction.
Roberts, D. H. (2024). Reading the Rocks: Dawdon Colliery and fossil trees.
Smith, D. B. and Francis, E. A. (1967). Geology of the country between Durham and West Hartlepool.
Smith, D. B. (1994). Geology of the country around Sunderland.
Cooper, N., Benson, N., McNeill, A. and Siddle, R. (2017). Changing coastlines in NE England: a legacy of colliery spoil tipping and the effects of its cessation.
National Trust: Durham Coast visitor information.
Durham Coast: official access statement and beach route
ACCESS RIGHTS
The Nose’s Point–Chourdon Point coast forms part of the Durham Coast SSSI, with important limestone-cliff habitats also protected within the Durham Coast Special Area of Conservation. Stay on established paths, avoid trampling the grassland and keep clear of nesting or resting birds.
Do not assume that public access includes permission to remove fossils. Check the current restrictions and obtain the owner’s or manager’s agreement before taking even loose finds. If you cannot confirm that removal is permitted, photograph the fossil and leave it where it is. Do not dig into cliffs or spoil banks, damage natural exposures, remove display specimens or disturb industrial heritage. Obtain permission from the relevant owner or manager before intrusive collecting or organised sampling.
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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