1233 – Cenozoic

Cenozoic – Now that’s a word to conjure with. I had never heard it before yesterday, and it cropped up when I was doing a bit of research on a particular place (to be revealed in a minute).

Cenozoic – what does it mean? Well, the dictionary definition is; relating to, or denoting the most recent era, following the Mesozoic era and comprising the Tertiary and Quarternary periods. So, quite recent then – only within the last 66 million years apparently – who’d have believed it?

So the place that I was researching (No, I’m still not going to tell you where – only a few sentences to go – and don’t jump ahead) turns out. to be the highest Cenozoic hill in England, and I see it every time I go to my part of Dorset, it is very iconic, and I always think of it as Dorset’s Mountain because of its conical shape (if you know the area, you’ll know where I’m talking about).

I did a post a while ago about the Purbeck Monocline, the almost right-angle curving of rocks around Lulworth Cove, which has been described as one of the last ripples of the Alpine Orogeny (mountain building period). It turns out that the Purbeck Monocline was formed in the mid-Cenozoic roughly 30 million years ago so in a way, that and Creech Barrow (Yay, yes that’s the place) are geologically related.

Unrelated and aside; do you find that phrases stick in your mind? The Purbeck Monocline is one of them, another is the Louisianna Purchase, I’ll do a piece about that.

Just to add to my frustration; I don’t have a picture of either Creech or Lulworth Cove for you – I’ll have to change that.