FOLDED ROCKS and HONEYCOMB WORMS

Although we've visited  Bude many times, we had never walked out beyond the breakwater until  recently. The shore to the west of the bay at Bude, where the canal and the river Neet run across the sand to the sea is well worth a visit at very low tide. First you pass an amazing length of rock which has been folded up into the shape of an inverted U , an anticline. 

The rocks here are a hugely thick deposit of sedimentary sandstone and mudstone layers which is known as the famous Bude Formation.  This dates from the Carboniferous period and is tremendously folded and contorted.

 

The anticline.

 HONEYCOMB WORMS

Further down across the rocks we were astonished to find great pillowy encrustations of the sand-coloured tubes of the Honeycomb Worm, Sabellaria aereolata in sheltered gullies between the reefs of rocks running out to sea. This marine worm builds its tubes out of sand and feeds on tiny suspended creatures in the water, needing a fairly exposed shore with sand to build their tubes with and rock to anchor them to. 

Honeycomb Worm colonies on rocky reef at low water.

Native to the Mediterranean, here  in the UK they are near the northernmost part of their range, but can be found in places down west and further up on the North Cornwall coast and I believe in places on the south Wales coast.

Close-up of colony.

Damaged colony showing tubes within it.