1. Dorset Coast Virtual Fieldtrip
Click to enter
This is an example version created to accompany the article in Teaching Geography. Due to limits in file size only a small section of the virtual fieldtrip is available.
All photos provided by Lucy Fryer

2. Choose a location to visit by clicking on the red rectangle
Map extract of Dorchester, Swanage and Portland © Ordnance Survey
Chesil and Weymouth
Click on this homepage button on any page to return to this slide
Press escape on the keyboard to leave the virtual fieldtrip

3. Chesil Beach Choose a fieldwork aspect to look at:
Human uses, conflicts and management
Pebble analysis
Beach gradient feature

4. Quartzite from Budleigh Salterton, East Devon (50 miles)
These are pebbles on Chesil Beach. Choose a few to sketch and annotate with a description and explanation.
Why are they the shape that the are?
Use the map below to work out which way they have been transported.
What will have been the transport process?
Chert from Golden Cap
Quartzite from Budleigh Salterton, East Devon (50 miles)
Rounded, quite small, varied lithologies. Due to attrition and longshore drift, multiple sources of erosion of cliffs. Transported towards SE.
~10cm
Flint from chalk cliffs at Beer
To Chesil main page

5. What do you notice about the beach leading to the sea?
To Chesil main page
What do you notice about the beach leading to the sea?
Can you see a reasonably clear boundary where there is a steeper gradient? (Click HERE to see a labelled photograph once you have tried working it out for yourself.)
Why is this steeper gradient present? How has this top section been created?
Looking SE from grid reference SY
Isle of Portland
Looking NW from grid reference SY
Storm beach = steeper gradient

6. To Chesil main page
Gradient 1 is much more gentle than gradient 2 on each image.
Back to question page
Looking SE from grid reference SY
Isle of Portland
Looking NW from grid reference SY 2 1 2 1

7. How many different uses of Chesil Beach can you spot from these images?
Do you think any will impact the physical landscape? How would they?
What do you think might be the conflicts between these different groups?
How do you think these conflicts can be managed?
To Chesil main page