page_title: Yorkshire Coast
section_title: Geology
hierarchical_section_title: Yorkshire Coast / Geology
caption_attribution_description: English: A geological survey of the Yorkshire Coast&#160;: describing the strata and fossils occurring between the Humber and the Tees, from the German ocean to the plain of York / by George Young and John Bird.
context_page_description: The Yorkshire Coast is a world-famous stretch of coastline that runs from the Tees estuary to the Humber estuary on the east coast of England. The coastline between the two estuaries was historically made up of the East and North Ridings of Yorkshire. Since the 1974 county boundary shake-up, this now comprises Redcar & Cleveland, North Yorkshire and the East Riding of Yorkshire.
  The North York Moors National Park extends up to the coastline and traverses 26 miles of the coast between Boulby and Cloughton, taking in the historic fishing villages of Staithes, Runswick Bay and Robin Hood's Bay.
  The section of coastline south of Bridlington to Spurn Head is known as the Holderness coast from the area of East Yorkshire that the coastline adjoins.
  The cliffs at Boulby are the highest on the east coast of England rising to 660 feet above the sea level.
  On 15 January 2016, Natural England announced the creation of a coastal path between Filey Brigg and Newport Transporter Bridge. This will eventually link up with paths all around the coastline of England to become the England Coast Path. The section from Filey to Saltburn is in use as part of the Cleveland Way.
context_section_description: As can be seen from the geological map, the Yorkshire Coast is composed of shales, alluviums (sand, clay and gravel), oolites, limestones, mudstone, sandstones, ironstones and chalk. Typically, boulder clay is the section alongside the North Sea in the East Riding of Yorkshire and has been the most prone to coastal erosion. The Lost Towns of the Yorkshire Coast by Thomas Sheppard lists 30 settlements that were lost by the time his book was published in 1912.
  Kilnsea Parish Church was destroyed by coastal erosion in 1830. It had been noted that the sea was eating away at the coastline before the last burial in 1823. In 1824, services in the church were stopped and 6 years later, the church and many of the dwellings around it had been lost.
  Erosion rates are now averaging 11 feet (3.5 m) per year on the sections between Hornsea and Mappleton and from Withernsea to the south. Many towns along the coast have installed defences to stop the sea claiming the land, but in some areas, the sea is taking the land and oftentimes is depositing it further down on Spurn Head.
  Both Withernsea and Whitby have used Norwegian rocks as sea defences. The Shoreline Management Plan 2, which covers the coastline from the Tyne to Flamborough Head admits that whilst towns such as Filey, Scarborough and Whitby should be protected, other settlements such as Robin Hood's Bay will see properties lost to coastal erosion. Robin Hood's Bay had concrete sea walls installed alongside its shoreline in 1973, but a report issued in 2014 stated that the structure was coming to the end of its design life.
  This stretch of coastline is also famous for the collapse of the Holbeck Hall Hotel near to Scarborough in 1993. After a prolonged rainfall, water had seeped into the earth which destabilised the ground underneath the hotel causing a landslide. Television cameras managed to capture the building falling onto the shoreline below.
caption: A geological map of the Yorkshire coast. North is orientated to the left top corner of the image. This means that the mouth of the Tees is on the left and the mouth of the Humber on the right
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