Lulworth Cove is a

cove A cove is a small type of bay or coastal inlet. Coves usually have narrow, restricted entrances, are often circular or oval, and are often situated within a larger bay. Small, narrow, sheltered bays, inlets, creeks, or recesses in a coast are o ...

near the village of

West Lulworth West Lulworth is a village and civil parish in the English county of Dorset, situated on the English Channel beside Lulworth Cove. In the 2011 census the civil parish—which includes most of Lulworth Camp army base—had 291 households and a po ...

, on the

Jurassic Coast The Jurassic Coast is a World Heritage Site on the English Channel coast of southern England. It stretches from Exmouth in East Devon to Studland Bay in Dorset, a distance of about , and was inscribed on the World Heritage List in mid-Decembe ...

Dorset Dorset ( ; archaically: Dorsetshire , ) is a county in South West England on the English Channel coast. The ceremonial county comprises the unitary authority areas of Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole and Dorset (unitary authority), Dors ...

, southern England. The cove is one of the world's finest examples of such a

landform A landform is a natural or anthropogenic land feature on the solid surface of the Earth or other planetary body. Landforms together make up a given terrain, and their arrangement in the landscape is known as topography. Landforms include hills, ...

, and is a

World Heritage Site A World Heritage Site is a landmark or area with legal protection by an international convention administered by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). World Heritage Sites are designated by UNESCO for h ...

and tourist location with approximately 500,000 visitors every year, of whom about 30 per cent visit in July and August. It is close to the rock arch of

Durdle Door Durdle Door (sometimes written Durdle Dor) is a natural limestone arch on the Jurassic Coast near Lulworth in Dorset, England.West, I.W., 2003.Durdle Door; Geology of the Dorset Coast. Southampton University, UK. Version H.07.09.03. It is priva ...

and other Jurassic Coast sites.

Geology

The cove has formed as a result of bands of rock of alternating

geological resistance Geological resistance is a measure of how well minerals resist erosive factors, and is based primarily on hardness, chemical reactivity and cohesion. The more hardness, less reactivity and more cohesion a mineral has, the less susceptible it is ...

running parallel to the coastline (a

concordant coastline In coastal geography, a concordant, longitudinal, or Pacific type coastline occurs where beds, or layers, of differing rock types are folded into ridges that run parallel to the coast. The outer hard rock (for example, granite) provides a prote ...

). On the seaward side the clays and sands have been eroded. A narrow (less than ) band of

Portland limestone Portland stone is a limestone from the Tithonian stage of the Jurassic period quarried on the Isle of Portland, Dorset. The quarries are cut in beds of white-grey limestone separated by chert beds. It has been used extensively as a building sto ...

rocks forms the shoreline. Behind this is a narrow (less than ) band of slightly less-resistant

Purbeck limestone Purbeck Marble is a fossiliferous limestone found in the Isle of Purbeck, a peninsula in south-east Dorset, England. It is a variety of Purbeck stone that has been quarried since at least Roman times as a decorative building stone. Geology Str ...

. Behind this are of much less-resistant clays and

greensand Greensand or green sand is a sand or sandstone which has a greenish color. This term is specifically applied to shallow marine sediment that contains noticeable quantities of rounded greenish grains. These grains are called ''glauconies'' and c ...

Weald Clay Weald Clay or the Weald Clay Formation is a Lower Cretaceous sedimentary rock unit underlying areas of South East England, between the North and South Downs, in an area called the Weald Basin. It is the uppermost unit of the Wealden Group of ro ...

Gault The Gault Formation is a geological formation of stiff blue clay deposited in a calm, fairly deep-water marine environment during the Lower Cretaceous Period (Upper and Middle Albian). It is well exposed in the coastal cliffs at Copt Point in ...

and

Upper Greensand Greensand or green sand is a sand or sandstone which has a greenish color. This term is specifically applied to shallow marine sediment that contains noticeable quantities of rounded greenish grains. These grains are called ''glauconies'' and c ...

. Forming the back of the cove is a band of

chalk Chalk is a soft, white, porous, sedimentary carbonate rock. It is a form of limestone composed of the mineral calcite and originally formed deep under the sea by the compression of microscopic plankton that had settled to the sea floor. Chalk ...

, which is considerably more resistant than the clays and sands, but less resistant than the limestones. The entrance to the cove is a narrow gap in the limestone bands, formed by

wave action In fluid dynamics, a wind wave, water wave, or wind-generated water wave, is a surface wave that occurs on the free surface of bodies of water as a result from the wind blowing over the water surface. The contact distance in the direction of t ...

and

weathering Weathering is the deterioration of rocks, soils and minerals as well as wood and artificial materials through contact with water, atmospheric gases, and biological organisms. Weathering occurs ''in situ'' (on site, with little or no movement), ...

. The wide part of the cove is where the weak clays and greensands have been eroded. Stairhole

Stair Hole Stair Hole is a small cove located just west of Lulworth Cove in Dorset, southern England. The folded limestone strata known as the ''Lulworth crumple'' are particularly visible at Stair Hole. There are several caves visible from the seaward s ...

, less than to the west, is an infant cove which suggests what Lulworth Cove would have looked like a few hundred thousand years ago. The sea has made a gap in the Portland and Purbeck limestone here to the Wealden clays and begun eroding them.

Geography

The shape of the cove is a result of wave diffraction. The narrow entrance to the cove causes waves to bend into an arc shape, as is visible in the panorama photograph.

Conservation

As well as the cove, across Hambury Tout (the large chalk hill to the west) is

, a natural arch. To the east there is a fossilised forest. Lulworth is also close to

Kimmeridge Kimmeridge () is a small village and civil parish on the Isle of Purbeck, a peninsula on the English Channel coast in Dorset, England. It is situated about south of Wareham and west of Swanage. In 2013 the estimated population of the civil p ...

, famous for its rocky shore and fossils. Geologists and geographers have been interested in the area since the beginning of the 19th century, and in the 1830s the first serious study of the area took place. Since then the area has drawn students from all over the world. The area suffers from trampling from its many visitors. Wooden steps, fences and steps have been put in place to limit this surface damage. Each year over 250,000 people walk across the hill linking the cove to Durdle Door. In 2001 the coast was granted

status by

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture. It ...

. Experts at UNESCO have been working on preserving the shape of Lulworth Cove. Lulworth was one of a number of gateway villages on the coast with a Heritage Centre—part visitor centre, tourist information and natural history museum; in 2002 the last received 418,595 visitors. The coast and land to the north and around the village is privately owned and managed by the

Lulworth Estate The Lulworth Estate is a country estate located in central south Dorset, England. Its most notable landscape feature is a five-mile stretch of coastline on the Jurassic Coast, a World Heritage Site, including Durdle Door and Lulworth Cove. ...

. Land to the east is owned by the

Ministry of Defence {{unsourced, date=February 2021 A ministry of defence or defense (see spelling differences), also known as a department of defence or defense, is an often-used name for the part of a government responsible for matters of defence, found in states ...

and used for tank training; it is open only at weekends and holidays.

In popular culture

* Four Sided Triangle (1953) * ''

Nuts in May ''Nuts in May'' is a television film devised and directed by Mike Leigh, filmed in March 1975, and originally broadcast as part of the BBC's ''Play for Today'' series on 13 January 1976. It is the comical story of a nature-loving and rather sel ...

'' (1976) * ''

The Boys in Blue ''The Boys in Blue'' is a 1982 British comedy film directed by Val Guest and starring Tommy Cannon, Bobby Ball, Suzanne Danielle and Roy Kinnear. It is loosely based on the 1939 Will Hay film ''Ask a Policeman'', which Guest co-wrote. Some polic ...

'' (1982) * ''

The Curse of Fenric ''The Curse of Fenric'' is the third serial of the 26th season of the British science-fiction television series ''Doctor Who'', which was first broadcast in four weekly parts on BBC1 from 25 October to 15 November 1989. In it, the ancient evil ...

'' (1989) * ''

Seven Natural Wonders ''Seven Natural Wonders'' is a television series A television show – or simply TV show – is any content produced for viewing on a television set which can be broadcast via over-the-air, satellite, or cable, excluding breaking news, adv ...

'' (2005) * ''

Walking Through History ''Walking Through History'' is a British television documentary history programme that ran for four series on Channel 4 and was presented by actor Tony Robinson. It first aired in March 2013. History Channel 4 commissioned the series Walking Thr ...

'' (2013) * ''

World War Z ''World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War'' is a 2006 zombie apocalyptic horror novel written by American author Max Brooks. The novel is broken into eight chapters: “Warnings”, “Blame”, “The Great Panic”, “Turning the Ti ...

'' (2013)

Miscellaneous

The bay of Lulworth Sinus in the largest hydrocarbon sea,

Kraken Mare Kraken Mare is the largest known body of liquid on the surface of Saturn's moon Titan. It was discovered by the space probe '' Cassini'' in 2006, and was named in 2008 after the Kraken, a legendary sea monster. It covers an area slightly bigger ...

, on Saturn's largest moon, Titan, is named after Lulworth Cove.

References

External links

Geology of Stair Hole near Lulworth Cove

The Lulworth Estate
{{Jurassic Coast, state=collapsed Coves of Dorset Geology of Dorset Jurassic Coast Tourist attractions in Dorset