Our final day examines the blue lias of Hinkley Point & Hinkley. This area is famous for its reptile remains and what a surprise to make such a brilliant find (more about that later). First of all we would like to thank the staff at 'Hinkley Point Nuclear Power Station' for all their help in allowing us to visit this site by using their car park and their help in extending the closing time when the security gates are closed, whilst we excavated this find. It is important to note that whilst our access point was via the power station, access via the visitor centre (and car park to the shore) will be closed due to a tightening of security in November. Access can be made in future via Hinkley village or by parking in laybys near to the power station.A footpath takes you directly onto the shore.
At hinkley point, the cliffs are often washed out with the reptile beds exposed. The reptile bed is below the thick limestone layer shown in the photo above. However their are other reptile beds along this coastline at different zones.
Our first find which we left on the beach for others to view was this large shell, smaller ones have been taken back for the UKF Collection, but this particular find was extremely large.
Further along the coast, we saw three ichthyosaurus Vertebras together in the cliff face, whilst we managed to successfully excavated one complete vertebra, the others were badly damaged by the sea. A forth was also found further along, also damaged by the sea. A rib was additionally found near the same spot. This could indicate that a possible skeleton could be in the same approx. 1m area. However attempting to find other remains would probably result in damaging any other finds. It was therefore decided to leave any other remaining bones to be naturally eroded although it is quite possible that other bones from the same animal have already been lost to the sea.
Further along the coast, exposed on the foreshore was a partial skeleton which had also been damaged by the sea, We believe that all the vertebrae had been washed away, but the jaw, teeth, ribs, Pelvis, and Paddle bones are all in tacked (other bones may be present but are currently hidden in blocks of clay. The race against the tide and time limits to get back before the security gates closed this meant that we needed to excavate this find as carefully but quickly as possible. This was done by ensuring that as much as the skeleton as possible stayed in individual slabs protected in the clay ready for preparation. A total of six large slabs with the bones in situ was taken from the site along with individual bones and partial bones damaged by the sea in the same area.
The following photographs show the original bones in situ, the rest of the partial skeleton is hidden under the clay or missing by sea erosion. This will require many days of preparation and preservation, so these photos of the individual bones cannot be displayed until this work has been completed. Our main aim has been to carefully preserve the remaining bones of the ichthyosaurus skeleton as much as possible ready for preparation at our UKF laboratory. As far as we are aware we have managed to save as many bones as remained in situ.
Photo showing part of the skeleton in situ
Photo showing rib bones in situ
Photo showing jaw exposed on the foreshore
"Eating With Dinosaurs" - the remaining three out of six slabs ready to to be wrapped and preserved carefully which nautrally take preferential placement on our dining table before the 7 hour journey back to our labs.
We also took a trip to Hinkley to examine more Blue Lias further along the coast, we managed to also find an Ichthyosaurus Phalange bone in a similar reptile bed, just to add to this extremely successful day!
