Old Whiteford Boat Wreck

I revisit things I have found on the beach to see how they change with time.

I hadn’t walked along Whiteford Sands for quite a while. My last visit was a few months ago – in December, I think. I was surprised at how much the seashore had changed when I went there again a couple of weeks ago in mid-March. There have been some very striking large scale changes as a result of the winter storms (and I will talk about what has been uncovered very soon).

I have photographed the remains of the small wrecked boat at Whiteford many times over the past ten years. Despite the major transformations to the Whiteford Point area over winter, the little wooden boat wreck remained untouched. This time the planking of the upturned hull was mostly covered by dry sand. However, part of the keel or mast-housing was still above ground. The timbers a little more weathered and etched – providing a great place for yellow lichen to flourish. The rusting old ironwork staining the adjacent timbers but the rivets still holding all the pieces together. The wreck looked very picturesque against the pristine wind-blown sand and the cold blue sky.

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Rusty Pebbles at Whiteford

Vast swathes of pebbles on the beach at Whiteford in Gower are coloured orange – or at least they were the last time I looked. (The beach sediments there are very mobile so it cannot be guaranteed that you will see exactly the same thing on each visit). These coloured pebbles are found in a band stretching from the base of the sand dunes at the eastern end of the beach towards the disused Victorian Whiteford Lighthouse.

The pebbles seem to be coated in rust rather than rusty because of their intrinsic composition. I guess the first couple of times that I noticed the orange pebbles I vaguely thought that they were stained by rust emanating from the decomposing remains of the old iron causeway that linked the lighthouse to the shore. You can often find pieces of the iron framework of the walkway – sometimes supports still in situ and other times single pieces of the structure lying free.

However, lately, I have been discovering more and more about the Quaternary geology of the Gower – a relatively recent geological period dating from about 2.5 million years ago to the present. This includes the Pleistocene with a variety of glacial, peri-glacial and inter-glacial deposits; and the recent Holocene (from 11,800 years ago) with peat and submerged forests, marsh, dune, beach and alluvial deposits. As I read more, I am gradually reaching something of an understanding about some of the natural phenomena that I observe and photograph on Gower beaches. So I now tentatively consider that the rusty pebbles are not related to the dilapidation of the old lighthouse but are the result of a much older natural geological process.

I have already mentioned in Jessica’s Nature Blog the remains of the submerged forest at Broughton Bay which lies to the west and adjacent to Whiteford Sands. These ancient tree trunks are embedded in peat deposits. While I was reading George (2008), I learnt that the peat decomposes to form a hard ferruginous layer called an iron-pan or hardpan. This has led me to wonder if the iron compounds that coat the pebbles at Whiteford are derived from an iron pan layer.

Supporting evidence for this idea comes from the presence of ancient tree trunks emerging from black peat deposits close to the rusty pebbles – similar to those stumps found at Broughton. The old waterlogged wood is also stained with rust – as you will see from the photographs below. Additionally, slightly higher on the beach, closer to the dunes, the shore is strewn with pebbles around which orange-coloured watery ‘tears’ rise to the surface and weep across the surface of the sand – making me think they might originate from a concealed ferruginous hardpan below.

Then again, I suppose the rust could come from buried decomposing munitions as the beach was used for firing practice in the Second World War!

Reference:

George, Gareth T. (2008) The Geology of South Wales – A Field Guide, G.T.George at gareth@geoserve.co.uk , ISBN 978-0-9559371-0-1, p 70.

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Mussel Gatherers at Whiteford

One typically overcast August day back in 2008, I was walking along the usually deserted Whiteford Sands when vehicles of all descriptions sped across the beach and into the distance. Tractors, trailers and four-wheel drive cars, laden with men and equipment, rushed across the sand to get to the boulder outcrops that surround the old iron lighthouse at Whiteford Point. Being curious, I made a bee-line in the same direction.

As I got closer, I could see that everyone was congregating at the fast-receding water’s edge where an extreme low tide was revealing extensive beds of young mussels growing wild. By the time I arrived on the scene it was one of absolute frenzied activity, with people using short-handled rakes to scrape the young mussels from their attachments into framed net bags as quickly as possible. This involved back-breaking work standing in the shallow water pools left by the ebbing tide, frantically trying to retrieve as much of the black harvest as possible before the tide turned. The contents of each full net were then transferred to large polypropylene builders bags on the rocks.

The mussels that they were harvesting were not large enough to be eaten. They were being gathered to supply the insatiable demand for shellfish in the UK and European markets. I was told by one of the mussel fishermen that the small mussels would be sold to localities, such as Poole Harbour in Dorset, where they would be grown on in more nutrient-rich waters than the Loughor Estuary – and fattened-up for sale to shops and restaurants.

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Mussels at Broughton & Whiteford

Wild edible mussels (Mytilus edulis L.) thrive around the Gower coast in South Wales. Although the area is perhaps better known for cockles (Cerastoderma edule L.), mussels grow in great abundance and are the second most important shellfish exploited in this area.

Good spatfalls result in millions of tiny mussels seeming to settle on every available surface that is subject to inundation by the sea, if only fleetingly at high tide or even just spray from the incoming tide. Rocks and boulders are obvious surfaces but strands of algae and living limpets also provide suitable habitats. The upper rocky shores appear to glisten with a richly textured carpet of the new generations of this bivalved mollusc. From a distance the mussel shells look black but, up close, it’s possible to see just how colourful and patterned some of these shells can be.

Not all the young mussels survive. These small seashore creatures compete for space on the settlement substrates. Some specimens fail to make it to maturity. Those that outlive the others can grow to good size. I feel particularly sorry for the poor old limpets which are increasingly weighed down as the covering mussels grow larger and larger.

Storm event and natural mortality can result in huge numbers of empty mussel shells on the beaches. Mostly, the empty shells are found with the two halves of the shell (the valves) stuck together by the ligament, as in life. They can look like decorative dark blue butterflies settled en masse on the sand. The last time I visited the place where Broughton Bay and Whiteford Sands meet, the strand-line was thickly covered with very smelly mature dead mussels on which the local gulls were feasting.

It is the small seed mussels that are collected regularly at extreme low tides from the boulders and pools around the old rusty iron lighthouse at Whiteford Point. In the next posting I’ll talk about how this is done and what happens to the millions of baby mussels that are collected.

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Winkles living on Whiteford wood and rocks

 

On the beach at Whiteford, near Llanmadoc in Gower, there is one place where many boulders and occasional water-logged timbers outcrop on the sands. The rocks could well have been deposited by an ice-sheet, while the wood may well be the remains of a forest that was submerged ten thousand years ago.

At low tide, hundreds of thousands of common winkles, Littorina littorea (Linnaeus), emerge from hiding places under stones and sand.  You can see trails in the sand showing how they travel to exposed hard surfaces on rocks and wood to feed. These surfaces may be covered with acorn barnacles but the winkles are vegetarians and are not interested in eating these. The winkles are after the thin encrusting film of microscopic green algae which coats every surface. Winkles have a sort of rough tongue called a toothed radula which they use to scrape this deposit off the surfaces.

Huge numbers of empty winkle shells can occur on the strandline at Whiteford. Many of the empty winkle shells found there, on the sandy spit beyond the point, have started life on the stones and boulders around the old Whiteford lighthouse. 

In common with these drifts of empty winkle shells on the strandline, the shells of these living specimens of gastropod mollusc are also thick and rough with a dull and worn surface. In close-up the shells also appear pitted; pitting can be caused by a lichen living in the matrix of the shell. 

In other locations in Britain – like the seashore along the Jurassic Coast in Dorset – the shells of the living common winkles are not dull and rough like the Whiteford shells: they look very different. You can see some photographs of these, for example, in the post called Holdfast habitat at Ringstead Bay.

 

Here is an ancient piece of wood projecting from the sand. At its base you can see the trails in the sand left by winkles as they move towards this hard surface. The winkles congregate at the base of the timber and climb upwards along the worn grooves to graze the algae.

 

Here is a close-up view of the winkles grazing on the eroded surface of a piece of old water-logged wood.

 

A scattering of  living winkles are also found feeding amongst the smaller, smoother, algae-coated stones.

 

On larger boulders the winkles are tightly clustered together and may entirely cover the surfaces. In the picture below you can see how dull and worn the shells are. Some of them have grains of sand sticking to them and a few even have barnacles attached.

 

Revision of a post first published 24 September 2009

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Lugworm casts at Whiteford Sands again

 

I couldn’t resist taking photographs of the lug worm casts on Whiteford Sands again. There seemed to be more than ever in October. I was struck by the patterns they made. First of all, the patterns within the worm casts themselves – the shape similar to the one you’d get if you had squeezed out the entire contents of a tooth paste tube in one spot – only made of sand. An incredibly long and sinuous unbroken sandy coil. These casts were huge.

The second type of  pattern was made by the arrangement of the thousands and thousands of casts and burrow holes on the sea shore – especially where it was covered by a gleaming surface layer of seawater that reflected not only the blue of the sky but the image of the worm casts as well – this made the mounds of sand look twice the size from a distance.

The worm cast patterns could perhaps be considered as naturally-occurring abstract designs. I played around with computer-generated effects to see how they would look. Applying the high solarization effect results in a scene that looks almost moonlit, or a negative image, and for full impact is perhaps best seen with the photograph blown up to highest extent.

The casts were really big. I don’t know whether this was because the worms were taking advantage of sediments that were particularly enriched with microscopic nutrients. Or whether it was the opposite scenario, where a vast quantity of sand had to be quickly passed through the gut of the worm in order to extract the meagre distribution of food particles.

Whatever the case, I don’t think I have seen so many casts at this location midway along the beach before. Mostly I have seen them much further eastwards beyond Whiteford Point. I may be wrong, but I think I remember hearing that the water in the Loughor estuary has become enriched by stormwater and sewage overflow in recent years and this has been suggested as a possible indirect cause for the mass deaths in the cockle populations in the area. I wonder if this is connected to the the apparent population boom in lug worms?  

There is more about these marine worms in the earlier post Lug Worms at Whiteford Sands.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Revision of a post first published 2 December 2009

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Sand ripple patterns at Whiteford – Part 2c

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The third and final digital enhancement version of the most unusual reticulated sand ripple patterns on the beach at Whiteford on the Gower Peninsula.

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Sand ripple patterns at Whiteford – Part 2b

 

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Photographs of naturally-occurring ripple patterns on the beach at Whiteford Sands in Gower – but digitally enhanced to emphasise the reticulation of the ridges and the natural abstract design they make.

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Sand ripple patterns at Whiteford – Part 2a

Sand ripple patterns at Whiteford Sands can be complex and reticulated. Just discernible to the discerning eye, the natural patterns are really brought out strongly by a liitle digital wizardry on the photographs – as you will see in the next two posts. All the pictures taken on 16th August 2011.

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Strandline dogfish at Whiteford Sands, Gower

 

The Lesser Spotted Dogfish or Rough Hound, Scyliorhinus caniculus (Linnaeus), found on the strandline at Whiteford Sands, Gower. The photograph above illustrates the most important feature for distinguishing this species from the Large Spotted Dogfish or Nurse Hound, Scyliorhinus stellaris (Linnaeus).

In the Lesser Spotted Dogfish as shown above, the nasal flaps, the skin that extends from the nostrils down to the upper lip, describe a smooth continuous curved groove down to and along the lip line. In the larger Nurse Hound, the nasal flaps and nostril grooves turn away from the mouth and the outline is approximately W-shaped.

 

The Lesser Spotted Dogfish is cartilaginous rather than bony and very shark-like because it is related to that group of fish. You can see the small sharp teeth on the lower jaw; in fact, these are denticles in the skin rather than ‘proper’ teeth embedded in the jaw bone. The rough skin covering the whole animal contains thousands of similar but microscopically small versions of the teeth in the mouth.

 

The Lesser Spotted Dogfish grows upto 75  cm long compared with1.5 m long in the Nurse Hound. It is common and lives on sand or mud in shallow water. (The Nurse Hound likes rocky ground in shallow water). It is considered to be quite tasty (when fresh) and is the fish that used to be called  ‘rock salmon’ and sold in fish and chip shops.

Finally, a view of the Lesser Spotted Dogfish showing the darker colouring of the upper and side surfaces with the characteristic spot markings.

For more information on the Nurse Hound see the information page on this blog. 

 

Revision of a post first published 12 May 2009

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