The Manx Group rocks which make up the majority of the Island often have a ‘pin-striped’ appearance with alternating bands of white sandstone and dark grey mudstone. However, at several localities, and notably at Cass-ny-Hawin pictured here, the bands are replaced by sediment with a more disrupted or globular appearance.

This disruption has been caused by organisms such as worms and arthropods burrowing into the sediment
when it was at the sea bed some
480 million years ago.

Click here for Geological cross-section through the Southern uplands