185 Million Years is a colour code for the Jurassic Coast from The Colour of Time series – part of an ongoing series of work researching the concept of how colour can map time.

This work is based on a geological ‘stratigraphic column’ describing the vertical location of rock layers, and represents the whole length of the Jurassic Coast – from the older (Triassic) red rocks of Devon to the younger (Cretaceous) white chalk of East Dorset. The unique aspect of this coastline and why it is a World Heritage Site is that massive earth movements have tilted all the layers of rock shifting what was a vertical timeline to a horizontal one enabling us by walking the coastline to literally walk through time. The sequence of blocks refers to the colour coding legends or keys of geological maps, each block representing a different rock layer and period of time, mapping the age and sequence of formation. Unlike geology maps that have their own colour system to symbolise the geological make up of a landscape this work uses the actual rock colours.

The Colour of Time is one of my most current areas of exploration.  Initially inspired by old hand coloured geological maps I became fascinated by the colour coding systems used. There is an interesting back story as to how the colours were decided and eventually a universal system adopted – which I am collating info on.

 

This small work is a view of St Ives Bay based on early geological mapping – the colours relate to geology colour codes though this time I’m using the official geological colour coding rather than actual colours – hence the pretty pink tones representing granite! I forgot to take a photo of the finished piece before sending to the gallery so this is an early stage image. There is a colour key on the side of the block.