| Summary: | In addition to a magical place for the young-hearted nature lover, the Rocks are home to a protected fossil site, remnants of life dating back 500 million years. Terry Fletcher writes, Since the description of the Cambrian trilobite Paradoxides bennetti Salter, 1959 from the Wester Cove, Branch has become well known for the remains of primitive animals in the rocks of the Cove. The most notable feature of these rocks is their bright red and green layering. Such layering represents the vertical pile of iron-rich sand, silt and mud layers deposited on the bed of an ocean during the Cambrian Period of Earth history. These layers contain the buried skeletal remains of animals that lived on the sea bed, as well as those that swam around in the overlying waters about 500 million years ago. Terry Fletcher continues, Hopefully, the Branch fossils will always be available for study and that no massive excavations will destroy the important sections of rock in both the Easter and Wester coves. Probably the best part ofBranch Cove for seeing fossils is close to the Green Gulch waterfall in the Wester Cove, where excavations are unnecessary, because fossils are continually falling out of the cliffs on to beach level, where they may be removed as souvenirs without affecting the scientific or touristic potential of the site. The important fossils in the Easter Cove are difficult to find, because they are so tiny and occur in cliff sections much affected by high tidal waters in layers older than those exposed in the Wester Cove. -- Terry Fletcher, Keen Time 2007 website
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