Compton Bay - Isle of Wight

The Fossil Collectors (Digital media)

Compton Bay on the Isle of Wight is a great place to hunt dinosaurs. There is a car park at Hanover Point and a set of steps leads to the beach.  The best time to visit is at low tide when it is possible to trace the footprints of the herbivorous dinosaur 'Iguanodon'. If you are lucky you might find some fossilised dinosaur bone or perhaps a tooth and pieces of fossil cycad wood known as lignite.

 

Iguanodon

We enjoyed a warm and sunny weekend on the Isle of Wight and in just three hours at Hanover Point we found our own pieces of fossilised Iguanodon bone, lots of 'lignite' and possibly a beach worn Iguanodon leaf shaped tooth.

As the tide receded, flat sandstone ledges were revealed and on them were the clear remains of dinosaur tracks.  Iguanodon had three toes on each foot and these can be seen at Compton and Brook Bays as both negative indents and positive casts. 

After we finished fossil hunting we walked back to the car park and enjoyed ice cream from the ice cream van.

Paleontologist Archie Boon discovers an Iguanodon Fossil

Iguanodon bone finds

Iguanodon footprint cast in the sea foam

Possible Iguanodon tooth

Drawings of Iguanodon teeth

Fossilised Cycad wood 'lignite' probably burnt after a lightening strike in a storm some 130 million years ago. The silvery mineral on the wood is iron pyrites or 'fools gold'.

Credits: Wikipedia, Dinosaur Isle, Natural History Museum. Dr Ian West

http://www.southampton.ac.uk/~imw/wight.htm