pebbles by sue cornish 30 July 2001are the pebbles a natural phenomenon, or were they put there to stop erosion. If so, when, and where did they come from?9 replies Re: pebbles by John Merrington 31 July 2001Of course, they were manufactured especially for the purpose. In something over 7,370,000 shapes sizes and colours they were packed in 10lb bags and delivered from London, on special trucks attached to the ‘Brighton Bell’, many years ago. The train fare alone amounted to more than twenty billion pounds and God went into bankruptcy rather than complete the contract . Furthermore, the government was forced to sell off British Rail to cover it’s own unpayable liabilities in the contract. The original intention was to fill in the English Channel but the Brighton & Hove Albion Football Club left town rather than fulfill it’s obligation as guarantor to the deal. It had no alternative; it had invested all of it’s reserves in the purchase of 4,372,000 white rabbits, especially trained to dig the Channel Tunnel to facilitate it’s escape from Division 4. Another bummer…Some idiot decided that a better job could be done using specially built machines ! So they had to eat the rabbits…..Of course the pebbles are a natural phenomenon ! This was a serious question…Wasn’t it ? Re: pebbles by Tame Ferret 31 July 2001Pebbles are moved along the South Coast by longshore drift. This combination of prevailing wind and tidal current moves material from West to East.Whenever there is a cliff fall the chalk gets washed away and the embedded flint, being much harder rolls around the sea floor getting rounded.Sometimes the flints get trapped in sand or clay for a few thousand years. In this case the pebbles are stained brown on the outside. Pebbles that have been trapped in chalk get stained white.Blue (grey) flints have not been stained at all and are prized by the pottery industry as they can be crushed and used as a glaze. Baskets of these were often collected for sale by poor people in the 19th century.Thus it can be seen that pebble movement can be entirely natural and can protect the coastline from further erosion. Where man has interfered with the natural processes by building Newhaven Harbour arm or Brighton Marina pebbles have to be transported to depleted beaches (as at Seaford) in order to restore the protection to the coastline.A very interesting video of the replenishment of Seaford beach can be viewed or obtained from the Martello Tower Museum on Seaford Seafront (open Weds, Sats & Suns).Tame Ferret Re: pebbles by Andy Horton 1 August 2001Hello.1) Natural occurence 2) Flint eroded out of chalk cliffs. The soft friable chalk got bashed up by the sea and harder flint remained, and rolled into their circular shapes by the action of the sea and the pebbles grinding against each other. 3) Certain amount of longshore drift whereby the pebbles moved into a eastward direction by the action of the waves, so the flint may have originated from chalk cliffs in West Sussex.Tricker questions to answer are how the flint got into the chalk in the first place, and how the chalk is formed.Some notes from my web sites: http://cbr.nc.us.mensa.org/homepages/BMLSS/coastal.htmChalk & FlintAbout 100 million years ago Sussex was covered by a warm sea. Sedimentary deposits of coccoliths (microscopic plankton with a calcium carbonate shell) laid down the chalk which is the rock of the South Downs of south-east England. The flint probably formed from the dissolved remains of ancient sponge siliceous spicules and was deposited at a later date into gaps and beds in the chalk when the silica then solidified. When the friable chalk was eroded the flint remained, subsequently rounded into spherical and ovoid pebbles by the action of the waves grinding the pebbles against each other.Extra note: sponges are a marine invertebrate animal and the spicules are the hard bits of the animal, the structure of it.This is simplified and this can make in a bit inaccurate for experts. John Cooper at the Booth Museum can surely do better.I have found a pebble fossil of the urchin Echinocorys scutatus amongst the pebbles and I think this gives an age of about 85 million years for the shiungle on shoreham beach and the same for Brighton where I have discovered another fossil.This is also one subject that Encylopaedia Britannica does not really deal with. Pebbles mean something on one of the sedimentation (particle-size) scales and this will be the meaning given in some electronic encylopaedias. This is the Wentworth Scale.Recommended Book: Pebbles on the Beach by Clarence Ellis (Faber) ISBN 0 571 06814 6 pbk.There is also a local booklet by Dr Malcolm Cornwall about pebbles on the beach, probably published by the University of Brighton. I have mislaid my copy.Longshore Drift Link: http://cbr.nc.us.mensa.org/homepages/BMLSS/LowTide.htm#Longshore driftCheersAndy Horton Re: pebbles by Jon Davies 1 August 2001I believe that originally the beaches at Brighton were sandy. I have seen several old prints which show this. According to my history lessons at school in Brighton (some years ago now) much of the sand was removed for use in building (to mix with cement) before there was any regulation of this sort of extraction of natural resources. So although the pebbles are in fact natural, the beach itself has been substantially altered by human action. Re: pebbles by Martin Snow 2 August 2001I recall reading that the answer was simply the erection of the groynes intended to stop erosion. These trapped the pebbles which previously rolled on to the crumbles at Eastbourne or Dungeness. See the items on long shore drift The same happened at Worthing and I am sure at other places along the south coast.I am not sure where the beach would be were it not for the groynes. No Brighton Centre – not a bad thing No Pavilion – Where would Brighton be without it No Kemp Town? No ????No doubt someone can give some figures on the likely coastline if it were still sand?. Re: pebbles by Geoffrey Mead 2 August 2001The pebbles on the beaches of Sussex are there naturally. They were originally bedded in the chalk as flint nodules, freed as a result of freeze – thaw in the ice ages, slumped to low levels on a raft of waterlogged part-frozen-slushy chalk. Ice melts cause Channel waters to rise, rolling flints around (marine abrasion) storms carry them up to the waters edge (littoral). Currents and waves drive pebbles eastwards along South Coast,all end up at Dungeness. Man -made breakwaters,groynes, harbour arms etc trap shingle in what is called Longshore Drift causing build up to west of obstruction (see any beach in B&H)(this is a potted version of a 3 year geography degree…some points glossed over…!) Re: pebbles by David Larkin 2 August 2001and no South Street!!! Have you ever wondered why Brighton has a North, East and West Street, but no South Street? It was situated South of the Ship Hotel and was washed away along with a large part of old Brighelmston that was built on the shinge in a great storm before the advent of groynes. I can’t remember the date off hand but it was at least a couple of hundred years ago. Find a friend by Ann Ross 18 October 2001Looking for Ann Furse – went to school with her. Re: pebbles by duffy 30 January 2010there is a south road, in brighton its along near preston park it runs off of london road up a steep hill towards dyke road area Add your replyHiddenAdd your title Add your wordsWould you like to add some images (optional)? If so, how many images would you like to add? 1 2 3 4 5 6Your image files will be uploaded when you submit this form. They should be .jpg or .png files. The maximum filesize is 5Mb.First imageAccepted file types: jpg, jpeg, png, gif.FileTitleSecond imageAccepted file types: jpg, jpeg, png, gif.FileTitleThird imageAccepted file types: jpg, jpeg, png, gif.FileTitleFourth imageAccepted file types: jpg, jpeg, png, gif.FileTitleFifth imageAccepted file types: jpg, jpeg, png, gif.FileTitleSixth imageAccepted file types: jpg, jpeg, png, gif.FileTitleAbout youFinally, please tell us a few details about you, so we can contact you about your contribution if we need to. 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