Seasalter fossils and fossil collecting

From Whitstable, follow signs to Seasalter. From the A290 you will find yourself driving along Joy Lane.
After about 800m look out for a turning on your right over a single carriageway railway bridge. If you get to the shops you have gone too far and missed it.
Go over the bridge and turn immediately left onto Admiralty Walk. There is a layby after a few tens of metres, where you can park.
From the parking area, walk back the way you drove in and take a left down to the beach opposite the railway bridge.

GRID REF: 51.35073°N, 1.00856°E

Crabs, Fruit, Lobsters, Fish

The huge expanse of London Clay exposed on Seasalter’s foreshore lends the location a bleak atmosphere. It is not the most picturesque of fossil hunting sites but occasionally stunning phosphatic fossils are found. Perseverance is rewarded here.

High

It takes a while to ‘get your eye in’ at Seasalter but once you know what to look for, a good number of nodules can be found during a visit.

Older Children

The London Clay foreshore is covered by mud up to a foot deep near the pebble beach and old bait diggers’ holes are equally deep. Therefore it is recommended that only older children be taken to this site.

Excellent Access

The foreshore at Seasalter is within 100m of free on-road car parking. The only access problem to note is the thick mud that covers the foreshore for about 50m after the pebble beach is descended.

Foreshore

All fossils are collected on the foreshore at this location, mostly from accumulations of pyrite, phosphatic nodules, cement stones and other pebbles.

No Restrictions

There are no access restrictions at this location.

Seasalter
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

This is a very flat location, where the tide retreats a good few hundred metres from the pebble beach. Fossils can be collected for a couple of hours either side of low tide and there is no chance of getting cut off. Watch out for deep holes made by bait diggers and subsequently filled in with loose sand – these can be spotted by the large number of worm casts on their surfaces. You will get muddy at Seasalter; wellies are highly recommended! Always make sure to tell someone where you are going and what time you expect to be back. If at all possible make sure to carry a mobile phone and visit a new location with a fellow fossil hunter.

Last updated:	2010
last visited:	2009
Written by:	Joe Shimmin

All you need is a good eye, and something to put your nodules in! Most of the hard work will be done at home, preparing the nodules using etchers, air tools or nails.

Other Locations similar to Seasalter

If you are interested in other similar locations in the area and of which have London Clay, try Levington, Nacton, Ramsholt, Bognor Regis, or Bawdsey, in Suffolk or Maylandsea, Walton-on-Naze or Burnham on Crouch in Essex, or Sheppey in Kent


To find fossils at Sealsalter you will have to descend the pebble beach and make your way onto the foreshore. The first 50m or so is very muddy. There are also plenty of old holes left by bait diggers to avoid. You can identify these by the many worm casts on the surface of what is very soft mud. The large majority of fossils found here are locked up in phosphatic nodules. These nodules are cream in colour and unfortunately can resemble other, different rocks that you will not find fossils in. To further complicate things, the phosphatic nodules will also often have black stains on them from the breakdown of marine life, which can look exactly like some part of a crustacean is showing through. Also, the nodules may be covered in barnacles or algae. A typical crab containing phosphatic nodule will be rounded, with two lobes where the pincers are concealed. These lobes may extend out to a greater or lesser extent. The nodule will be of a creamy colour, not orange, as broken cement stones look. The nodule will not be angular in any place and will not be too thick. Once you have found a good nodule it is worth holding onto it as a reference while you get your eye in. The nodules can be found in any area where there are accumulations of pyrite and other rocks. Some areas have more nodules than others, you just have to keep moving until you find a productive one. There are very few fossils at Seasalter that do not require preparation. Therefore if you are not skilled with air tools it is probably not worth visiting this location. The nodules have iron within them and get harder towards the centre. They can also be ‘sticky’, making preparation a hard task indeed. This location is more one for the specialist than the amateur. Most people will come away disappointed if they think they will find something special here but as is shown in the excellent new London Clay fossils of Kent and Essex book some really fantastic finds have been made here. Nodule beds at Seasalter

	Eocene, 50mya
The foreshore at Seasalter has extensive London Clay deposits (Eocene age), which contains the famous nodule bed, with phosphatic nodules containing crabs, lobsters and fish...[more]


Nodule with prominant pincers...[more]

Preparation tools

Microscopes

Test Sieves for Microfossils

There are many different types of preparation tools available, you can use hand tools, such as tungsten etchers similar to dentist equipment or air tools.

Air etchers will remove matrix much faster and do a more accurate job, but you will need a compressor to run these, and they are often the most expensive part of the equipment.

We sell a wide range of preparation tools, which can be found here.

At Seasalter, you can find Microfossils from the chalk. They are much easier to collect because they are so small that you only need a small amount of chalk sample. You then need to break it down in water and view using a microscope to view these.

Chalk is actually composed of fossil shells, so you only need a small amount of sample on your microscope.

We have a wide range of microscopes for sale, you will need a Stereo microscope for viewing microfossils.

Test Sieves are used when searching for microfossils. We recommend that you use a test sieve with water at different levels. Test sieves for London Clay fossils should be 500 microns, and 1mm.

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 fully certificated to EU Standards.

Our International Rock and Fossil Magazine

Specimen Boxes for Fossil Storage