Caim fossils and fossil collecting
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Supervised Children
The beach is covered by large boulders in places and the headlands are steep. Children should be well supervised here. |
Fair Access
There is a 500m walk from Caim to the beach. Once on the beach some climbing over boulders and ledges may be required. Caim is quite hard to find and parking can be difficult. |
Beach, Ledges and Pebbles
Fossils are found both in situ in rock ledges and also loose as wave-rounded pebbles. |
No Restrictions
The beach is reached by a public footpath. There are no restrictions on the beach itself. |
As this is a remote location it is best to visit in pairs or as a group. A mobile phone should be taken and someone should be told where you are going and when you expect to be back. Make sure you visit on a retreating tide and take care when climbing ledges or boulders. |
Caim
Tide Times
UK Tidal data is owned by Crown Copyright, and therefore sadly we are not allowed to display tide times without paying expensive annual contracts. However we sell them via our store, including FREE POSTAGE
Click here to buy a tide table
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Last updated:
last visited:
Written by: |
05/06/08
2008
Joe Shimmin
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Other Locations similar to Caim
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Caim is an excellent location for corals, other similar locations for Carboniferous Corals are;Parkhouse Hill, Castleton, Portishead, Weston-Super-Mare in Avon. In Derbyshire, you can find corals from Monsal Dale
In South West Wales, you can also find Silurian Corals from Freshwater East, Marloes Sands. Mortimer Forest, Shadwell Quarry, Upper Millichope , Llanymynech Quarry, and Wenlock Quarry, Wenlock Edge
in the Shropshire District. Along the South West Coast, you can also collect Devonian Corals from Torquay along Hopes Nose and Daddy Hole. In Scotland, you can also find corals at St Monans. From Wales, Carboniferous Corals can be found at Lydstep Headland, West Angle Bay, Caim, Halkyn, Great Ormes Head, Red Wharf Bay, Prestatyn, Llangollen, and Manorbier Bay.
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Geological Tools
You should bring a decent rucksack in which to store your finds. Packing material and bags should also be brought. This is a remote location - you should take enough to drink with you and also a mobile phone. A camera will come in handy for photographing the corals.
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One of the best places to look for fossils along this stretch of coast is on top of the headland that you come to at the end of the walk from Caim. Within minutes of investigating the rock here you should have found a number of excellently preserved coral specimens standing proud of their matrix. Please do not try to remove these, leave them for others to find also.
A little lower down there is a layer of rock that is almost entirely composed of coral fossils. This can be seen well at the base of next headland to the west.
The pebbles and cobbles that make up the beach also contain fossils. Brachiopod sections and pretty corals are frequently found. With some searching you should be able to collect quite a few of these.
At the top of the cliff next to the path there is a limestone outcrop; large brachiopods can be observed in its exposed strata. Please do not attempt to extract these.
Fossils can be found for a few hundred metres to the east and a couple of kilometres to the west along this stretch of coast, but the most impressive - the corals - are found just at the end of the path down to the beach...[more]
Headland - the exposed rock at the top is full of corals
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Carboniferous, 330mya |
The Carboniferous Limestone Series at Caim is of Visean age. It is part of the Clwyd Limestone Group, This is around 330 million years old. This is a diverse range of limestone facies with subordinate sandstone and mudstone units, and exhibiting local dolomitisation. Records the initiation and growth of a carbonate platform along the northern flank of the Wales-Brabant Massif.... [more]
How life in the oceans would have looked at Caim 350mya
(C)opyright - Free Software Foundation (FSF)
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Stone Tumblers |
Microscopes |
Test Sieves for Microfossils |
If you are interested in fossil collecting, then you may also be interested in a stone tumbler (Lapidary). You can polish stones and rocks from the beach which
will look fantastic polished using a stone tumbler.
You can polish rough rock and beach glass whilst collecting fossils, on those days where you come back empty handed.
These are all high quality machines to give a professional finish to your samples. They can even be used for amber and fossils. |
At most locations, you can find microfossils. You only need a small sample of the sand. You then need to wash it in water and sieve using a test sieve. Once the sand is processed, you can then view the contents using a microscope.
We have a wide range of microscopes for sale, you will need a Stereomicroscope for viewing microfossils. The best one we sell is the IMXZ, but a basic microscope will be fine. Once you have found microfossils, you will need to store these microfossils.
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Test Sieves are used when searching for microfossils. Microfossils can be found in many locations, and all you need is a small amount of sample such as clays, sands and shales, or if you have acid, limestone, oolite or chalk.
Our UKGE Store sells Endecotts Test Sieves, which are the highest in accuracy and extremely durable and long lasting. These Test Sieves are fantastic for microfossils. Endecotts Test Sieves come in a variety of sizes, frame material and types, they are certificated to EU Standards. |
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Our International Rock
and Fossil Magazine |
 
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Parking can be found at or near to Caim, which is at the most western tip of Anglesey. 
