Otter Cove

Overlooking the east side of Straight Point with Otter Cove ( relatively precisely in the center ).

Otter Cove is a small bay on the eastern side of the headland Straight Point near Exmouth, in the county of Devon, on the Channel coast in southwest England.

Straightpoint and thus Otter Cove are about sixteen kilometers south of the city of Exeter, four kilometers south-east of Exmouth and about eleven kilometers southwest of Sidmouth. Straight Point is used by the Marines as a shooting range. Otter Cove is therefore not accessible from land but, only accessible on foot at low tide from Littleham Cove from.

Geology

From Orcombe Point at Exmouth to Old Harry Rocks east of Studland Bay extends in the East Devon and Dorset, a 155 km long coastline, which was included as a first countryside in England by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site. Straight Point and Otter Cove are part of this so-called Jurassic Coast.

The rock strata of the Jurassic Coast are tilted slightly to the east. The geologically oldest rocks are therefore located in the westernmost section of this Küstengeotops. To the east, the median age of the rocks decreases gradually. The natural outcrops along the coast form a substantially continuous sequence, ranging from the Triassic deposits, on the Jurassic to those of the Cretaceous geological period and represents a total of about 185 million years ago. The depositional area, who recorded the sedimentary series of the Jurassic Coast at the time, is the so-called Wessex Basin.

The rocks on the cliff at Otter Cove include the westernmost and thus geologically oldest part of the Jurassic Coast. You are spätpermischen and / or early Triassic age and consist primarily of layers of red sandstone. Lithostratigraphically they belong to the " Exmouth Mudstone and Sandstone Formation " ( roughly translatable as " Exmouth clay and sandstone formation " ) turn to " Aylesbeare Mudstone Group" ( " Alyesbeare - Mudstone Group " ) is one. , And were deposited by the action of rivers in semi-arid to semi-humid climatic conditions. This is the Exmouth lineup also their age and petrography closely related to some significant Permian and Triassic sedimentary series in Central Europe, for example, both in terms of its emergence as with the Tambach formation of the Thuringian Forest, or the widespread in Germany sandstone.

The sandstone sequence in the cliff of Straightpoint and consequently the forms of Otter Cove the geologically youngest part of the type - profile of the Exmouth lineup.

Due to the relatively high erosion resistance of the sandstones compared to the shales from which the cliff Sandy Bay and the cliffs exist east of Otter Cove, the headland of Straightpoint could form in the first place. Moreover, could such a narrow surf platform occur at the south and east of Straight Point just above the Ebbniveau.