Was kimmeridge/durlston bay once under water or on dry land?
It was underwater in a quite shallow sea for a couple of hundred million years, the same as the whole of the Dorset and Devon coast, which is why the fossils in the area are all of sea creatures like ammonites. Then later the land was pushed up and the sea bed was lifted above the water. While it was underwater, layers and layers of sand/silt/dead sea creatures built up, which you can now sea as layers in the cliffs in that area. The sea bed was pushed up on a slant, so that if you walked from East Dorset to mid-Devon you are walking back in time, down through almost 200 million years of continous layers and fossils, which is why it’s a World Heritage Site.
