Years after they've Gone, gone,gone !

The fossil song , could be a hit for One Direction ?
I've always been interested in fossils every since I found an ammonite when I was a child. Mike feels the same so we always have our eyes down incase we spot one. I was sitting in the garden after doing some digging when I spotted this rock by the pond.

This is an imprint of an ammonite we found on the beach at Eathie. Although a steep climb down, felt more on the way back up, Eathie is a secluded beach just a few miles from us. It is one of just a few onshore areas in Scotland where Jurassic rocks are exposed. All rather exciting especially when you find out that the reason the red sandstone cross cut the black shale is likely to be caused the 'liquefaction of sand' by earthquakes resulting from the movement the great glen fault.

This brings me to another famous Black Isler, Hugh Miller. Miller lost his father in a shipwreck when he was just 5 years old and it sounds like he was quite a handful, always off exploring and playing truant from school. He did become a stonemason. Some of his work can be seen at Nigg Church where we visited a few weeks ago.
He began writing for the Inverness Courier and went on to write a book about folklore collected from the' Cromarty firesides of family and friends'.

He enjoyed exploring the Eathie coastline, collecting fossils and was a self taught geologist. He collected over 6,000 fossils forming the beginning of the Scottish National collection.

Today fossils can still be found , it is a site of scientific interest so no hammers or picts can be used to remove any fossils but you can find some and it's good to look at the fish beds. Watch the tides though and take a picnic !

Its now sunny and raining so of to hunt the rainbow :)