During the excursion yesterday we visited a place called “the priests bathtub” (Swe. “prästens badkar”).  It’s a rocky sandstone beach in the village of of Vik on the east coast of the province of Skåne (Scania) in Sweden. The sandstone is called “Hardeberga sandstone” (or Hardeberga quartzite since most parts of it actually has metamorphosed to some degree). I believe its the oldest forms of sedimentary rocks we have in Sweden.

The sandstone was deposited in the early Cambrian (542-513 Ma). That means that the ocean that slowly erodes the sandstone today isn’t the same ocean as the ocean that the sandstone once was a white beach at. Literally speaking, since the continents have migrated a lot since then. The sandstone was formed on a great depth and pressure and the rocks that were above it have eroded away. Perhaps a mile or two of rocks have eroded for this sandstone to reveal itself. It becomes quite a mental challenge trying to depict this in front of you. First the deposit of the sand, then the rise of new layers of sediments above this, mile after mile, pushing the sand lower and lower and then finally the rise of it all due to tectonic movements, but mostly, actually because of erosion. Quite a journey.  The early Cambrian was another world with another climate, and hardly any breathable air to breathe. No life on land at all, just in the oceans. Hundreds of millions of years before the first dinosaurs even. And now over 500 million years later, half a billion years, it’s a beach, once more.

And inside the rocks, the trace fossils of ancient life that actually survived the journey.

Picture below. Beach overview.

Picture Below. Example of stratigraphy. 

Picture below. Trace fossils. Tracks of "worms". 

Picture below. Sample of Hardeberga Sandstone with trace fossils. You can see small "tubes" that are filled with other sedimentary material. The oldest fossils in my collection. Early Cambrian.