Filey Bay John Paul Jones Heritage coast. In a brand new exclusive initiative to mark this occasion, John Adams and the Filey Bay Initiative is launching the Filey Bay John Paul Jones Heritage Coast Initiative, the first of its kind in Yorkshire.

The Filey Bay John Paul Jones Heritage Coast Initiative

Geology

Filey Brigg and Carr naze

The area from the Tees to Flamborough Head, has some of the most magnificent scenery on the English coast. Situated at the mid-point of the Yorkshire coast is Filey Bay, shouldered on its northern extremity by a peninsular headland known as Carr Naze, the seaward rocky extension at sea level being known as Filey Brigg. On the southern boundary stands the famous chalk promontory of Flamborough Head, effectively closing off the Bay to the South.

The coastline is largely composed of Oolitic limestone overlying Oolitic sandstone deposits covered by limestone and sandstone erratics, and extremely small elements of basalt, ironstone and lava. The bottom of Filey Bay is largely sandstone, with exposed outcrops running along the ten to fifteen fathoms line covered by sand and fine silts. Beyond this line the bottom starts to descend gently with a sand cover giving way to exposures of stone consisting of a very gently sloping slab stone bottom, generally covered by sand. This is in turn overlaid by a thin lens of silt. Little vegetation exists here. There is a fault running in a roughly east-west direction from a point near Speeton cliffs across the bottom of Filey Bay which forms a break between the Jurassic mudstone and limestone to the north and the Cretaceous chalk to the south.

Filey Brigg is a reef of calcareous grit, which projects more than a half mile from the foot of Carr Naze. In calm weather the low lying Brigg is difficult to discern, but in rough seas huge white waves break over it with considerable violence.

The wide, sandy shore of the bay extends southward of the Brigg for several miles until it meets the white chalk cliffs that include Flamborough Head. The Head is well known for forming a break in local weather patterns resulting in different local weather conditions to its north and south.

To the south of Filey forming part of the cliffs at Speeton are to be found the famous beds of Speeton clay forming a passage series between marine Jurassic strata and those belonging to the Cretaceous system and rich in fossil deposits.

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