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It's taken time, 40 million years in fact, but this Eocene shell has made it home to the sea at last. To think this little shell last enjoyed bathing in a sun drenched sea 38 million years before our earliest earliest ancestors stood upright. Crazy. 

Eocene beach

I was walking in the Eocene this afternoon under the unseasonally warm sun, which reminded me that when these layers were laid down this area was a tropical lagoon. It's been a while since I'd walked these ancient horizons, and the landscape has changed noticeable. There are still land falls, slips and slides, and some are quite substantial, though for the most part the fluid landscape has been temporarily stabilized by colonizing plants and shrubs. Very successful colonizers are the Cat Tails, which now cover swathes of the wetter areas, Willow trees who I was surprised to see growing in quite some numbers, their canopies filled with bird song, and many of the areas which were exposed clays are now covered in a layer of tough grasses and horsetail. Still, there were enough exposed Eocene horizons to keep my eyes occupied. The entire surface of these exposed horizons is covered in shell fragments, as well as plenty of complete shells in various sizes and of various types, and the occasional sharks tooth. The 'Barton Beds' as they're called are well known in palaeontological circles, are an important research resource and some impressive specimens have been collected here. The best time for fossil hunting are over the coming months of bad weather, when land movement is common and virgin horizons exposed. Care needs to be taken as the area is dangerous and you can find yourself knee deep or even waist deep and in need of rescuing with one careless step; even today when the surface is still quite dry and stable, care was required. A great walk though, so much to see and think about.