The Devonian Period - 417 to 354 million years ago
Visit Berry Head Country Park and you will be standing 60m (200ft) above sea level on the remains of a massive coral reef. This reef formed at a time in the Earth's history around 400 million years ago when, thanks to the movement of continental plates, our landscape was a few degrees south of the Equator. As a result the sea was warm, tropically warm, and primitive corals were able to thrive, along with many other creatures that are now extinct such as trilobites and ammonites.
The corals and these other creatures, like their modern-day relatives, fixed calcium from the seawater to construct their shells - and when they died new corals grew on top of them. Over hundreds of thousands of years, immense underwater reefs were formed and the calcium carbonate was compressed into solid rock. Changes in sea level and the further effects of continental drift have left the resulting limestone exposed to the elements.
Tor Bay is framed by the tough, pale limestone headlands of Berry Head in the south and Hope's Nose in the north. In between the picture is confused, but most of the rocks are New Red Sandstones, aged around 280 million years. These rocks are much softer than the limestones and the sea has eroded them over the millennia to a much greater extent - creating the crescent of the Bay.
