• Question: i love rocks whats a good place to find them

    Asked by vivalamarq to Simon, Laura, Hannah, Christian, Angus on 14 Jun 2013.
    • Photo: Simon Holyoake

      Simon Holyoake answered on 14 Jun 2013:

      rocks are all around… although to begin, I would suggest starting at the beach, the rocks there tend to be smooth from all the grinding from being moved around by the tides, they also tend to be harder rocks, however due to their being moved around all the time, it’s hard to know where they come from sometimes.

      Another option is to look for some rock outcrops, these are where the bedrock is exposed, you can find some sites local to you by having a search on google, they are often in nature parks and less built-up areas

      good luck!

    • Photo: Christian Maerz

      Christian Maerz answered on 14 Jun 2013:

      Usually you will find nice rocks where they are exposed on the surface, and not covered by vegetation. So that would be steep cliffs, quarries, coastlines, mountains in very general, or areas where people used to do mining for ore. Just be always aware that some of these locations can be hazardous, and sometimes access might be forbidden.
      In the UK, there are a lot of great coastal locations to look for fossils, like the Jurassic coast in Yorkshire or Devon. And there are very nice minerals in mining areas like the North Pennines.

    • Photo: Hannah Bentham

      Hannah Bentham answered on 14 Jun 2013:

      I agree that beaches are great places to look for rocks and fossils.

      But rocks are everywhere so depends on which types you want. I think some of the prettiest rocks are found where there is a lot of deformation, where forces push the rocks together to form faults or folds (a great place to find these are in NW Scotland). Get yourself on an organised field trip, maybe through the British Geological Survey. They also have amazing rocks on display at their offices in Nottingham and Edinburgh.

    • Photo: Laura Roberts Artal

      Laura Roberts Artal answered on 17 Jun 2013:

      The other scientist have given you some really good ideas for where to look for rocks, I totally agree with them, beaches and mountains are great places to look.

      Closer to home, look at old city/town buildings, they are often built with stone from quarries local to the town. Many of the buildings in Yorkshire are built from local sandstone. I’ve just been on holiday to France and the village I was staying in had pavements built out of lava from a local volcano and the bricks in the houses were packed full of fossils, which were really interesting to look at! The flooring in many buildings can also be interesting, Liverpool airport’s floor is made from a rock called limestone and because it is polished you can see some really awesome fossils in it!

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