The Seven Sisters Cliffs

Editor's Notes

1. Birling Gap has one of the highest rates of erosion along this part of the south coast. The red bits!
2. On the foreshore, the chalk platform is littered with debris aprons from recent and earlier rockslides and rockfalls. The dominant landslide mechanism is a type of sliding failure with a very deep tension crack penetrating most of the Seaford Chalk Formation. This rock fall occurred just before New Year 2014.
3. Six months later the process of erosion, sorting and removal is fully underway, the rockfall providing some respite for one part of the cliff while providing ammunition for increased erosion to the east of the fall.
4. And a little way to the west of the fall, the next crack forms. A tension crack at the top of the cliff near Birling Gap.
5. A notch which has been partially filled by a recent rock fall.