STRIKING BLACK AND WHITE STRIPED LARGE BEACH STONE/PEBBLE

Just east of the outlet of the River Char on Charmouth beach, in the
area close to Raffey’s Ledge, the upper shore is strewn with many large
irregular stones. Amongst these, the most noticeable are those with
white patterns and lines, which on closer inspection turn out to be
crystalline calcite-filled cracks in the matrix of the rock. I have been
looking at these strange stones over the years and wondering what
they were (see the earlier post Pebbles with white lines on
Charmouth beach). Now I think I have the answer. They are the
worn remnants of the inner cores of Birchi Nodules. Birchi Nodules
appear high in the cliff above this section of shore and have a complex
structure resulting from a series of processes in the sediments that
took place millions of years ago before the sediments compacted into
rock. The large ovoid or discoid Birchi Nodules can be seen scattered
along a line below the more continuous stratified rocky Birchi Tabular
Bed at the top of the cliff. The rest of the cliff below is mostly
composed of darker thinly-bedded shales.

These remnants of the inner cores of Birchi Nodules are also a kind of
septarian nodule. The stones illustrated here from Charmouth are
partial remains that have been worn smooth by rolling around on the
beach for a long time. Further east along the coast at Ringstead I have
seen complete septarian nodules  that have freshly fallen from the cliff
face of a different type of rock formation  (Septarian Nodules at
Ringstead).

[I found out about Birchi Nodules from the most excellent on-line
resource for the geology of the Dorset Coast written by Ian West.
This is a veritable cornucopia of information but requires that you
continuously scroll down the page to locate the items in which you are
interested. It is well worth the effort if you really want to find out the
information.]