"Fossils of the Jurassic Coast World Heritage Site" A Talk by Malcom Hart

When the Dorset and East Devon Coast World Heritage Site was inscribed on the UNESCO (Natural) list in 2000, one of the items of ‘Outstanding Universal Value’ was the history of life enclosed in the rock succession. In the 185 million years of Earth history recorded in the cliffs of East Devon and Dorset, there is an outstanding series of fossil assemblages that piece together the geological history of the area.

Palaeontologists and geologists have, in over 200 years of research, reconstructed the animals and the history of life on Earth that they record. There are lessons for the modern world in terms of climate change, ocean acidification and mass extinction events. As James Hutton famously said, “the present is the key to the past” whereas we now suggest that, perhaps, the “past is the key to the future”.