ShapeShift

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2007-07-01T14:16:00.000Z

We have almost finished - and left in a terrible rush on Friday afternoon in a state of universal exhaustion. I will go back with Islamiya for one day to finish the remaining cardboard section and to do some patching-in as there are more gaps in the canopy than I'd like. Although technically we have worked to an exact plan, the structure surprises me with the sheer movement embedded in the material - especially the cardboard sections which swirl and loop onto each other. I wanted this sense of movement and it's not in the flat graph plan. Perhaps building sculpture this way is comparable to an architect, say le Corbusier, who starts with some basic principals and extrapolates a building from these principals. Although much is determined from the start - the journey towards the end structure is precarious and by no means certain.

week 2.2

2007-06-27T10:41:00.000Z

We only have two days left, but we should be OK. I very badly over-estimated the amount of material we'd need, so there are great piles of flooring chipboard and old fencing left over, all cut into strips. I rather lament this waste of energy and resources, but I'm not sure how I could have estimated more accurately. I have begun to go back over the completed area to remove extraneous struts, as I now realise this is the best way to get the thinness of support I was looking for - plan in too many struts so it's solid while it's undergoing the stress of building, then remove half of them. I can't remove as much as I'd like, but the thinning-out is very satisfying - like the chinese game in which you keep removing sticks until the structure falls.

week 2.1

2007-06-25T12:31:00.000Z

Walking back into the space, after an essential weekend's rest, I have a chance to evaluate how I feel about the sculpture. The aspects I like are that it really does feel huge and overwhelming and the decision to allow all sorts of different physical relationship to the object. there is often a frustration in looking at huge objects - like cliffs - that you want to see them from many different angles and usually you can't - you're stuck looking from the top (with it beneath your feet) or the bottom. We have already built steps to allow a bridge over the structure, and it's possible to walk right under the high points, so the structure is a roof over your head. We till have to build a viewing platform so that it can be perused like landscape. I feel worried about finishing to time, so I arrange for Andy to build the viewing platform - it will need to be really solid, and having looked into prices of stage hire for this - they are prohibitively expensive.

week 1.2

2007-06-22T18:04:00.000Z

We've completed the first week of building. We began by building the small low section on the near side of the K/T boundary. This means I have a good idea of the surface and how to build it while we plot in the graph lines onto the floor... which takes far longer than I had anticipated. The main difficulty has been the scaffolding to support the structure. I'd like it to be as thin and spindly as possible, but it also needs to be robust enough to hold the huge weight of material at aver three meters. After some trials and prevarication I decide to err on the side of caution. I call Andy and together we build something a bit stronger than the wooden structures you find in adventure playgrounds... Still, by the end of the first week we have the whole length plotted, most of the materials processed into the right sized strips, and most of the scaffolding in. maybe, I think to myself, just maybe we'll finish on time.

week 1.1

2007-06-17T10:43:00.000Z

We've begun to build. I've got four people to help me - and the work will need all our time and energy for ten days, as it's huge: 12 meters long, 5 meters wide and at the highest point, 3.5 meters. Bjorn, Sam and I have worked on the data for the last two weeks getting everything right. I know, I've skipped this bit but fundamentally, there was much email to-ing and fro-ing, checking of data sets and re-compiling. In the final stage we centered the graph on the ostracod line, which makes it asymmetrical, giving a far more satisfying overall shape. I've also been ordering tools, gloves, dust masks and so on which I also pass over because it's simply relentless practicality.

Saturday - I drive from London with Islamiya and we begin work at noon. Alistair joins us in the evening taking the train from Oxford and finally Tom and Helen arrive from London the following morning. The main task now is to sort out and process the piles of junk that I've collected by type. Until we know what proportions we've got I can't decide which materials to use and therefore - what it's going to look like.

Working on the porcelain radiolaria we are much helped by passers by, some of whom passed back by today to make more.

porcelain radiolaria

2007-06-04T20:37:00.000Z

I've found a clutch of drawings of radiolaria dating from 1904 on wikipedia. Ernst Haeckel's Kunstformen der Natur is extraordinarily Catholic in it's imagery - with forms that owe so much more in their rendering to the sacred heart or crown of thorns than the microscopic forms themselves. A nice reminder of how culture imposes images on simple forms. I suppose I'm imposing democracy on them. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Haeckel_Spyroidea.jpg

mass contributions

2007-05-31T18:29:00.001Z

Only a fortnight left now till the build and much to do. Poor Bjorn has altitude sickness in America somewhere so we're still waiting for his graphing. In the meantime more planning. Making art work is as much logistics as creativity. Maybe more. I guess the key is to be creative with the logistics, in light of which I've organised a weekend of participation over 16th/17th June so people can come and sculpt a radiolarian and drop off recycling for use in the piece. I have my fingers crossed that this sort of participation will be attractive as the piece needs more hands to it. I'm the sort of person who feels moved by communal activity - like Amish barn raising, so my work methods reflect this at times.
The work really is about mass contribution in fact, small gestures and shifts and changes leading to huge effects, and as usual the intention of the work is reflected it's making...quite unintentionally.

A different way of thinking about art...

2007-05-30T22:01:00.000Z

I have finally read through the blog - just in time for the last meeting! (Spending a lot of my working day in front of a computer I find it a bit hard to do the same when I get home...) I was really excited when I heard about this project as I have a long-held interest in where art and science meet. I've been entranced by images of microscopic organisms like these from D'Arcy Thompson's On Growth and Form (first published in 1917) for years. However, what is really interesting to me is Abigail's "conceptual" approach to art. I have always painted and created things but just because I find them pleasing - not because they really mean anything.

It is going to be a real challenge to create a sculpture which can convey the Jurassic Coast in terms of physical space, time and biodiversity! I believe that it will alter people's perception of what they are walking on when they come to Durlston - and anything that makes us think has to be a good thing.

Friday night on the Bournemouth Belle

2007-05-27T14:31:00.000Z

Friday25th May was a calm and pleasant evening perfect for a boat trip to view the Durlston Coast. We set off from Swanage and travelled along to Old Harry then back along the coast to Dancing Ledge. The rock formations were fantastic. All that we had learnt from working with Sam really helped us to appreciate what we were looking at. Robin senior ranger from Durlston Country park gave us a very informative commentary not just on the birdlife but on the structures of the cliffs and the history of their formation. There is a horizontal fault that runs from Durlston all the way along the coast. This is known as the Puffin Ledge but the Puffins were in hiding on Friday night!! We have walked the Dorset Coastal Path many times over the past 35 plus years blissfully unaware of the cliffs and rock formations under our feet, a walk in Durlston park will never be the same again

Rain and radiolaria

2007-05-23T21:03:00.000Z

Sam is with two of her post doc students today. They have collectively been working on the data to produce a set of fabulous graphs. We pore over these for a couple of hours as they aren't easy yet to comprehend. I can see some problems with translating them into three dimensions but I'll ask Bjorn the mathematician to think about this. He's in America but still in touch.
A wet day with low visibility, but the group all arrive - many of them bringing unwanted bits of stuff from their garage... This is great but I am still worried - less than a month to go before we begin to build the sculpture now. We create more 'radiolaria' from porcelain clay. We have a pile of twenty of these shapes now... but i'd like at least two hundred. Another logistical issue to overcome.
In the drizzle we walk down to Tilly Whim caves and observe the different layers of rock formation, some massive, others that look as if they have been built from bricks. The caves aren't worked now, but clearly exploit the massive formations. it is low tide, the sea has itself exploited the weaknesses in the rock, this 'dirty' limestone, full of imperfections, to slice off sections at ninety degrees. We see a woodpecker in the valley by the lighthouse. It's not a river valley but was carved out by meltwater when the glaciers receded, just like the sharp cut though the ridge where Corfe Castle was strategically built.
I also make some tests with the plastic bottles we've collected. I can't get a convincing way to join and pack them. I'll probably have to ditch them as a potential material, which is shame as they are so easy to source.

Peveril Point - Searching for Microfossils!

2007-05-21T09:07:00.000Z

What an enjoyable evening I had searching for fossils on Peveril Point - who would believe you could get so excited by the discovery of minute beany looking microfossils in a flaky piece of rock. A real eye opener! I forget all the specialized names now but to me thats not really important its the fact that these fossils are millions of years old and you can see them here on Peveril Point so easily and actually with the naked eye if you look really carefully.

What was also amazing was the identification of fish scales - they would appear on the surface of the rock as jet black gems - smooth and shiny - and passing your finger over them you could feel how they were raised slightly above the rock - very beautiful formations - quite unbelievable really.

Another favourite for me is the layers of rock that can be seen in the cliff face and how one can see the force of movement - where different strata have shifted to create a visible fold.

The variation in the rock that has fallen at Peveril Point is wonderful there are huge chunks that have broken away to reveal bands of protruding fossilized shells that feel rough to the touch.

Saturday 19th May - walking the coast

2007-05-20T18:12:00.000Z

I was disappointed that the first boast trip of the season was cancelled but we ended up staying Dorset anyway and made the most of the beautiful, but windy, Saturday morning by heading out with my boyfriend Gary to Kimmeridge Bay. By this time my student Clara Bolton and I had produced the Dorset diversity plot and it really has added a new dimension to the walking up and down the topography of the cliffs and thinking about the biodiversity under foot. There were amazing views west along the geological succession from the organic-rich clays (rich in dinoflagellates) through limestones and shales to the chalk cliffs towards Lulworth in the distance. We could also just about make out Portland on the horizon. To the east we walk along the Kimmeridge Clay and up the Jurassic succession. On the way back we picked up a few fragments of the dark, organic rich shales of the Kimmeridge units and bivalve mollusks as well as lots of ammonite fragments are obvious on the surfaces as delicate imprints. No chance of seeing microfossils with a hand lens in these rocks but they are there in abundance!

Biodiversity

2007-05-20T18:11:00.000Z

Abigail and I have spent much time discussing how the plankton that lived in the Jurassic and Cretaceous of Dorset changed through time as part of our conversations on the dynamic nature of the landscape, the geology, and the organisms recorded in the rocks. The species found change in two main ways. First, there is the evolution of species within each microfossil group that is driven by climatic change, habitat space, and natural variability. Species appear while others either evolve into new species or become extinct. Second, the collection of species we find associated at each time interval and at each location is a product of the ecological tolerances of each species. With changes in environmental conditions we get variation in the species found. Individual species have different tolerances to temperature, food availability, water depth, salinity, etc. Tying this back to Durlston and the Isle of Purbeck, we know there are huge variations in environmental conditions, mainly resulting from sea-level changes, with deep oceans through to river systems recorded in the rocks. This results in huge variations in the assemblages of species found which is superimposed on the evolution of individual species through time. Through really useful chats with fellow micropalaeontologists, we’ve now got access to a superb dataset published in 1987 under the editorial supervision of Alan Lord and Paul Bown of University College London. It lists all the microfossil species found in a set of samples that were collected along the Dorset coastline. There are about 120 samples and it provides us with a unique record of the variation in diversity of microfossil with variation in environmental conditions through the Jurassic, Cretaceous and into the Paleogene. We intend to collate this data and produce diversity curves which we can then compare with records of sea-level change and temperature change. This will give us the opportunity to produce plots of data that are directly relevant to Durlston.

Sunday afternoon - The compiled data has produced a beautiful plot! As expected, diversity is relatively low where sea-level was low and freshwater, brackish or lagoonal conditions dominated. The highest diversities correspond to the Cretaceous chalk where a high diversity of plankton existed in warm, extensive shelf seas. So, the Wealden beds of Swanage bay are represented by a diversity low and then as we move towards Ballard Down diversity steeply increases and mimics the topographic high of the down. The dataset gives us a neat picture of diversity changes as we walk along the coast from Lyme Regis to Bournemouth. We’ll look in detail at this plot at the next meeting on Monday.

Drawings

2007-05-20T09:34:00.000Z

May 17th

Back at Durlston I visit the household recycling center in the van. I've been OK'd by Dorset CC to take as much stuff as I like for the project. I load up but it's going to be very hard to get enough material like this, as it's a 20mile round trip and we need a huge amount.

In the 'studio' I pin up a series of drawings that I have made over the past week. The drawings are very abstract - bunches and layers of repetitive shapes that swirl into one another. I made them as a way to try and think about how to get small shapes to dynamically make bigger shapes, which contribute to even larger scale shapes. That's all.

Sam has, amazingly, discovered a study made in 1987 on the whole Jurassic coastline east from beyond Swanage along west to Pinhay in Devon. At regular intervals rock samples were collected and the microfossil content logged. There's no analysis, no graphing, just a list of what was found. This is an amazing find - we can base all our analysis on this unused, twenty-year old data set.

The group arrive bang on time in the studio and after some discussion - partly about how to contribute to a blog site - we head down to the beach at Peveril Point armed with some hand lenses and Sam's book. It's an warm clear evening and the Isle of Wight is sharply delineated on the horizon as we spend a happy hour identifying ostrocods and different types of bivalve. You can't move for fossils.

Two group members spontaneously and independently say that the fossilised shells embedded in the rocks look like the drawings I have pinned up in the studio, which is curiously satisfying, as I hadn't somehow made that obvious connection myself.

Micro-fossil hunting

2007-05-19T07:56:00.000Z

The meeting on thurs gave me an insight as to the finished product and so a goal i can visualise as we progress through meetings. Tell me if i am wrong but this is my interpretation of the project as it unfolds.Creating a walk through time on physical pathways which will tell the story of the Jurassic Coast using a micro-fossil theme throughout. This is to be in the form of a graph explaining the vast periods of geological work interlinking with the biodiversity of the critters found in this area. This will also be explained through climate change and how some critters dominated because of their adaptation to the local environment.
Shame that the boat trip was cancelled my boy and i were really looking forward to it but another day. See you on monday, Phil.

Shapeshift

2007-05-15T17:47:00.000Z

Hi AR , and the rest of the group , it was great to see lots of active minds working together, and i am happy to be a part of it. If you remember my location that i think is of particular interest, both visually and geologically, is the valley, alongside the lighthouse and which leads down to the entrance to Tilly Whim caves. If you are walking from the globe just as you reach it, there is that steep climb down, which gives a small element of danger and risk, especially in windy weather. When you reach the bottom of the valley,and sit on the cliff edge, you can easily imagine the waterfall which once flowed over the edge, as well as the power of the waves as they smash against the cliffs. Add to this the curve of the lost stream back up the valley into dense shrubland and i think you have a magical place. Havent taken any photos yet, but i hope to on Thurs or Fri. Phil.

Geologizing on the beach!

2007-05-13T18:04:00.000Z

In our first ‘geology excursion’ we went down to Peveril Point. Unfortunately the weather was pretty poor and it was not safe to venture onto the beach itself. However, the point provides superb views back towards Durlston Head and over Swanage Bay to Ballard Down which meant we could talk about the general geology of the area. We could see the Purbeck beds exposed in the cliffs above Durlston Beach and the clear repetition of beds due to a fault near the zig-zag path. The rocks on the west side of the beach are the same sequence as those on the east. At the point itself there is a clear syncline offshore (a fold in the shape of a ‘v’) where we could see each side of the fold dipping inwards. This was Lisa’s chosen point and we could see why she is attracted to it. (In our second trip down to Peveril Point we got to see the syncline spectacularly exposed in the cliffs). In Swanage bay there are Wealden beds which could be seen as reddish sands and are topographically low because they are not very resistant to erosion. In contrast, the chalk of Ballard Down forms a topographic high. There is therefore a clear link between the geology and the surface topography – geomorphology. Richard was particularly interested in the geomorphology of the Isle of Purbeck, particularly how you can trace the line of outcrop of chalk as the downs from the magnificent cliffs east of Swanage, along westwards past Corfe and out to where they outcrop at the coast again at Lulworth.

During the meeting on Thursday 17th, we went back to Peveril Point and this time the gorgeous weather allowed us to gone down onto the beach and hunt for fossils in the Purbeck Beds. It didn’t take much hunting! The rocks are packed with macrofossils – oysters, mussels and snails, plus, with the aid of hand lenses we also found lots of microfossils, specifically ostracods. The ostracods are tiny crustaceans with a bi-valved type shell which preserve as little baked bean-shaped fossils on bedding surfaces. Abigail and Lisa tracked down some circular fish scales and Davina and I found a small fish vertebrae and other fish debris. It also looked like there might be black carbonized wood fragments. I’ve taken some of the rocks that we particularly liked back to the NOC for photography. I look forward to seeing how those turn out. The different associations of rock type and fossils pointed to different environmental conditions, mainly freshwater where we were. We hope to make it further along the beach next time and look for marine fossils and evidence for perhaps hypersaline or brackish conditions. The Purbeck beds were laid down in a variety of shallow water conditions that varied to the degree of marine and freshwater influence.

Peveril Point

2007-05-11T20:55:00.000Z

Peveril Point:

Co-ordinates: - Latitude & Longitude N50:36:28 W01:56:31

Lat: 50.608000000 Long: 1.942000000

I feel very drawn to Peveril Point as a location along this Jurrassic coast line. For many years it has been a starting point for simply taking a walk away from the hustle and bustle of Swanage. I enjoy standing on the cliff edge looking down at the waves crashing below on this ragged rock formation. The swell and noise of the sea captivate the senses and on a windy day its a magical place to be.

One senses a danger beneath the waves - a similar outcrop of rock is witnessed to the left of this formation - jutting up in a kind of symmetry - It invites one to question what lies beneath?

On site

2007-05-11T13:56:00.000Z

May 9th/10th 2007

Sam Bjorn and I spend the afternoon in discussion. Using the text books as a starting point we consider the graphs and the chapters on functional morphology, as these are the aspects that grab my attention.

We discuss, among other things, a theory that mass extinctions follow a regular pattern which could correspond with cosmic rays penetrating the earth's fragile ozone shield. Suddenly the scale we are working with appears even more immense; the whole solar system / rays / asteroids are included.

I move into the studio, finally. It doesn't look so much like the image at the top of this page any more. Much darker and encroached on by trees. The studio is a big rather gloomy rectangular space - the proportions aren't great. The castle as a whole is very ill-designed. I am glad to notice horsetails growing through the paving slabs of the courtyard outside, amid piles of rubbish being stripped out from the stricken castle. Horsetails are fantastically ancient, like ginko trees, and similarly fascinating in their form. There's something very simple about these prehistoric survivors which is really attractive.

The semi-derelict castle is being stripped out - I scavenge for potential materials and find strips of white plastic paneling, heavy chunks of wood studded with ancient nails, formica kitchen tops. It's a start. Hamish, the head ranger here takes me through the rooms of the castle pointing out all the skip-bound stuff. This includes a storage rack stuffed with a miscellany of household paint in improbable colours and a set of wicker lampshades. What will be useful and what won't be isn't clear yet. I make a list.

The group of local volunteers (The photo is from this first group meeting - Phil, Lisa, Dave, Richard, and Davina) are very enthusiastic. They have all nominated specific points in the landscape for further study. This is very reassuring as it pins the ideas down a bit and grounds them in observable, normal features of the landscape. Sam calls this 'truth-grounding'. In the photo you can see one of these nominated features. It's a syncline at Peveril Point in Swanage.

I think about Darwin. He just began with some local observable phenomena and thought intelligently about them. This simple approach brought about a paradigm shift. Fantasticaly straightforward really.

Materials

2007-05-04T08:21:00.000Z

May 4th 2007

I am thinking about materials. I am remembering that Sam doesn't use plastic bags. I am thinking about how upset she is by albatross colonies who are dying because they swallow so much plastic mistaking it for food floating on the surface of the Atlantic.
I am wondering whether it's possible to build purely with recycled materials. A decision like this will streamline the sculptural decisions as well as the conceptual ones, which will be useful. It will mean rather than spending money on materials. Materials gathering and processing needs more human time. I spend some time boiling and blending newsprint to see if I can get anything like clay to happen, but I can't.

Microfossils

2007-04-27T17:34:00.000Z

April 27th 2007

Reading the books Sam gave me I have been getting to grips with some actual information about microfossils and how the different species of coccolithopore (for example) changed in response to environmental pressure. I realise that they change shape over their lifetimes and that there are ways of analysing their basic shapes. Their response to climate change is less observable as single mutations within a single species - rather that the population densities will shift over time and that this community is called the 'assemblage'.

Perhaps I should look at assemblage changes rather than changes within a population. I can't help looking for material clues. There are three classifications of foraminifera. 'Agglutinated', 'Porcellaneous' and 'Hyaline'. Hyaline means glassy, porcellaneous needs no elucidation, and agglutinated sounds like glued together which is no accident. These relate to the different way that the critters are structured.

Fluctuations in salinity, temperature, oxygen, food, and light all seem to affect the assemblage of these critters.

I look at graphs showing extinction patterns and biodiversity explosions. I look at line-charts that show how rocks can be aged by searching for particularly short-lived fossils which will give an accurate dating. I read about the K/T boundary which was the moment when all the dinosaurs as well as almost everything else were wiped out by a meteorite. I also look at geological maps of the coast and the bandings and patternings of the rocks, colour-coded for easy distinction. I love the functional beauty and accuracy of maps.

I also find that humanity has been affecting biodiversity for far longer than I had thought. Ingenious fossil studies show that the wooly mammoth was eliminated though over-hunting by human communities, not climate change... and that's at a time when hardly any humans existed.

Separately to this rather cerebral research I hold a 'clay' day at the Ruskin School of Fine Art in Oxford where I teach BA students. A potter from Dorset leads the day. At one point I am given a handful of clay and find myself amazed by it's plasticity. Clay is incredibly malleable. I thoughtlessly poke holes in it with my fingers as I watch the others until it's just a mass of holes. Looking at what I have accidentally 'made' I realise that this is the shape of a plankton I had seen in Sam Gibb's slide presentation in March. As a process leading to a form it's simple and fast. Jonathan makes his own clay from the soil in his garden. Could we make clay on the Durlston site and work with it?

The meaning of landscape

2007-04-20T22:53:00.000Z

April 20th 2007

I meet Sam Gibbs at Durlston for a day of thinking about microfossils and also climate change. Sam has recently been looking at a period about 55 million years ago when the climate rapidly heated. She has been studying the effect this had on the plankton in the seas along the current coastline around Swanage.

This of course has relevance for the current moment when we are experiencing rapid climate heating, but now it's very different because:
1 now it's much faster now than it was back then
2 now it's made by humans (Sam calls this 'anthropogenic climate change')

It has come home to me that the project brings me close to the horror of landscape as well as it's beauty. Just to skim too fast over cultural attitudes to the land as represented in visual art for a moment:
For classical artists (17th-century classical landscape painters like Claude Lorraine - nature as harmonious, serene, majestic and, mostly ETERNAL. Often harboring a tiny mythological drama) the landscape was stable signifier of lasting values.
For the Romantics in the nineteenth century landscape was a reflection of the soul. Their sense of the picturesque was a noble expression of suffering nobly endured by unpretending strength of heart.
Land art of the twentieth century (eg Robert Smithson - see 1968 essay "The Sedimentation of the Mind: Earth Projects" working directly with the landscape was a way to engage with social issues and was a metaphor for pure thought.

All these attitudes to nature are strongly anthropocentric, but relations between humanity and nature have changed from nature / the landscape as an untouchable force to a current sense of the terrible fragility of the natural environment faced with the unstoppable force of human impact. Our relationship with landscape is still pretty terrifying, but what we are scared of now is ourselves.

Where am I with all this? In 2000 - 200 2 I worked more directly with the idea of nature than I do now. Mostly the works I made were built on the premise that nature is an artificial cultural construct. I don't feel like this any more. Maybe because since 2002 awareness of climate change has completely altered our concept of 'nature'. In common with the rest of the liberal middle class Sam and I are trapped between horror and helplessness. We are both of the generation that grew up in an atmosphere of fear - the post-cold war fear of nuclear holocaust. I can clearly remember the feeling of horror and helplessness this gave me when I was about fifteen years old. Now I feel the same way about the impact of humans on the environment.

Sam never uses plastic bags ever because of the horrible effect of plastic bags on marine life. She seems always to carry binoculars and a bird-identification guide. The highlights of the day are are for her a peregrine falcon and a spider-orchid. I don't manage to see either of these things and even if I had I don't think they would be meaningful to me in the same way as they are to Sam.

I ask Sam about the effects of Jurassic climate change on the shapes of the plankton - she calls them 'critters' which I now realise is a way to get around the fact that all these microscopic life forms have different names that I as a non-specialist won't know anyway. She tells me that at one point the oceans were dominated by a type of critter that was very calcium-hungry and pretty much sucked all the available calcium from the sea. This meant that other critters which used calcium to build tiny exoskeletons were starved of materials to do this and went from being thick clunky things to far more beautiful and efficient intricate structures. I love this kind of story.

I talk to Sam about my thoughts on starting points for the project, which I have now called 'Shape Shift: landscape in motion'. I've chosen this as a title because it's that sense of constant shifting over time that I think is key, and also the sense that the small shapes of the plankton, themselves shaped by the changes in their environments effect the massive shapes of the cliffs and beaches.

After lunch we walk out along the coast past the lighthouse and see bushes covered in brown caterpillars, we see early purple orchids which Sam photographs. We see apple blossom, which is too early. We pass a patch of burnt ground with blackened tree stumps. Sam points out that ferns are springing up on the scorched earth and describes them as 'opportunistic' species. After the mass extinction (like the one that saw off the dinosaurs) ferns were the first plants to re-colonise the earth.

As I walk along a chalk cliff, I am changed by knowing now that the cliff I stand on is made almost exclusively from fossilised plankton. The gigantic shape and the microscopic shape. The vast time beneath my feet and my momentary lifetime.

I leave with three of Sam's books, which are (in case you want to read them):

A Guide to extant coccolithophore taxonomy, Journal of Nannoplankton Research special issue 1 - 2003 Young, Geissen
Quartenary Environmental Micropaleontology ed Haslett 2002
and
Principals of Paleontology 3rd ed Foote and Miller 2007

the last being my favourite....

Reading the land

2007-03-26T11:01:00.000Z

March 26th 2007

Malcolm, a retired geographer, meets me off the train at Wareham and we drive West to Lulworth cove. In his company I can, incredibly, read the landscape. At Lulworth he points out the way the landscape crumples in waves. He shows me how to identify the major types of rock layers by their colour (green, white, red) and their texture.
Some rocks are soft and crumble easily like greensand (a very literal name this), the Portland Limestone is hard and massive with few cracks and fissures. I am surprised here to find that chalk acts as a hard, erosion-resistant rock. Close looking is required to distinguish a rock type with many fissures (the Wealden Beds) from one with less. Soon I can do this but it would have been impossible without Malcolm's intelligent eye.

We drive over the Lulworth ranges, a ridge of hard rock, part of the same crumpled wave we have seen in micro-scale at Lulworth, and into Kimmerage bay. Here there is a bay with softly shelving strata. Malcolm tells me that in the summer the rocky shelves forming the flat bottom to the bay warm up so a swim in the bay is far warmer than a swim elsewhere along the coast.

We walk Eastwards along the shoreline. The Kimmeridge clay is crumbling into the sea and we walk along among an abundance of fossils. I am very surprised to see a traditional nodding donkey oil well working on the opposite cliff. I thought these only existed in the deserts of America and Arabia - but it's got that same slow and simple jointed pump movement going on.

Finally we scramble down onto the strip of coast that faces Durlston Country Park from Swanage. Malcolm embarks on an incredibly detailed almost meter by meter examination of the rocks running along the coast. We see fossilied fish scales, the 'cinder-beds' which are ancient oyster beds, steak stone, and more else besides that I can't remember. It's amazing how a rather uninteresting, undramatic shoreline opens up like a book.

What do I take from this? Huge time scales, a sense of layering and buckling, close detailed differences. Causes and effects.

In the evening I meet Sam Gibbs. She works at the National Oceanography Centre in Southampton and has, luckily for me, agreed to be part of the project. She and I make a short presentation to a group and what hits me most in her presentation is that a chalk cliff - like the ones in view from Durlston - are 99 percent fossilised plankton.
Given that plankton are too small to be seen with the human eye a chalk cliff is a mind-boggling amount of time and bodies. Sam talks about how marine life fossilised like this locks up carbon. It is a process that takes carbon from the atmosphere and locks it away out of the system. This is what has helped to make the earth sustain life like ours.... that is until we came along and released it again by burning fossil fuels. Doh!

Starting points

2006-12-11T13:47:00.000Z

Dec 2006

I began this project with the intention of creating an artwork, or a group of related artworks that will reflect on the amazing experience of walking across the cliffs from Swanage towards Exeter, moving backward through 185 million years of geological time. Aspects that interested me at the start are:

1 the 'sketch' - The church had trouble accounting for fossils. A mediaeval monk postulated that fossils were god's 'sketches' for creatures at the start of creation. These were thrown out of heaven and embedded in the earth. I like this idea of a sketch.
2 symmetry - fossils like ammonites and trilobites show remarkably simple and clear symmetries
3 time - the youngest rocks here are still 65 million years old - and that's already too massive an amount of time for me or anyone to imagine. I will feel lucky to reach 65 years myself.
4 the sublime - there is a sense in the whole project of a mathematical sublime - a sense of awe and individual annihilation in the face of numbers far too massive to be comprehended.