Eddystone Rocks

The Eddystone or Eddystone Rocks are a seaswept and eroded group of rocks ranging 9 miles (14 km) southwest of Rame Head in Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. Although the nearest point on the mainland to the Eddystone is in Cornwall, the rocks fall within the city limits of Plymouth, and hence within the county of Devon. For centuries the rocks have been a hazard for the ships in the approaches to the English Channel and the port city of Plymouth. There have been four lighthouses on the Eddystone Rocks. Winstanley (two versions; the second replaced the top of the structure), Rudyard, Smeaton and finally the Douglass Lighthouse, which is the present one. When the Douglass Lighthouse was completed, the people of Plymouth paid for the dismantling of the Smeaton Lighthouse from the red rocks of Eddystone and its reassembly at Plymouth Hoe, where it is a popular tourist attraction today. The stub of the Smeaton lighthouse still remains on the rocks. In the 1970s, the question of geographical ownership (between England and France) was left undecided and was instead considered part of 'the provisional equidistance line for the continental shelf'. The reef, inclusive of the area between the Devon coastline and Start Point, is home to many different fauna that have been the subject of scientific studies from 1895 to the present day. One particular study in 2012 investigated the relationships between the environment of the rocks and bottom deposits and marine inhabitants, with particular emphasis on rare specimens of gobies. As regards geology, the Eddystone Rocks are composed of garnetiferous gneissic rock which is part of a considerable underwater outcrop of mica-schists and granitoid gneisses which are not found elsewhere in South West England. Research into the wave impact on these rocks has also been conducted, noting the weathering of the rocks and the lighthouses from these impacts. Research has also been conducted to test the metallic pollution of the sediments…