Chesil Beach

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(Redirected from The Fleet)

Image:Chesil and fortuneswell.JPG Chesil Beach (sometimes called Chesil Bank) is an 18 mile (29km) long, 200 metre wide and 18 metre high shingle tombolo in Dorset, southern England. The beach is part of the Jurassic Coast World Heritage Site. This tombolo connects the Isle of Portland, a limestone island in the English channel to Abbotsbury, though it continues westwards to West Bay near Bridport, and it is the largest tombolo in England. The beach is steep showing a clear storm beach. Pebbles on the beach are graded, getting coarser nearer Portland, and fishermen familiar with the beach claim to be able to tell their location from pebble size alone. The pebbles are mainly flint and chert from the Cretaceous rocks which make up this stretch of the Heritage Coast.

Image:Chesilbeachikenny.jpg Image:PortlandBillAndChesilBeach(Landsat).jpg

The origin of the beach has been argued over for some time, originally believed to be from the Budleigh Salterton pebble beds to the west and later from Portland to the south east. The differences between the pebbles on the beach and nearby sources is now put down to the Flandrian isotactic sea level rise so the feature could also be considered a barrier beach or bar that happens to connect the mainland to an island rather than a 'true' tombolo that is created due to the effects of the island on waves (through refraction) and so sediment transport. This usually produces a beach perpendicular to the mainland rather than parallel to it.

Image:Dorset pl from ac.jpg The beach provides shelter from the prevailing winds and waves for the towns of Weymouth and Fortuneswell, which otherwise would probably not exist.

At the Isle of Portland end of the beach, the beach curves round sharply to form Chesil Cove. This part of the beach protects the low lying village of Chiswell from flooding.

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The Fleet Lagoon

From West Bay to Cliff End the beach is piled up against the cliff. At Cliff End a hollow forms behind the beach and at Abbotsbury a stretch of muddy saline (or brackish) water called the Fleet (a lagoon) begins. The Fleet is home to many wading birds and Abbotsbury Swannery, and fossils can be found in the sand.

Because of the low population density of nearby areas and their proximity to the naval base on Portland, the beach and the Fleet were used for machine gun training and bouncing bomb testing in World War II.

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