Discover Jurassic Coast - With its towering cliffs, sweeping beaches and pretty seaside towns, the shoreline of Dorset and east Devon is spectacular.

With its towering cliffs, sweeping beaches and pretty seaside towns, the shoreline of Dorset and east Devon is spectacular. Jo Caird fossicks for fossils and dramatic rock formations. It's an auspicious start to my journey along the Jurassic Coast. This 95-mile stretch of shore mostly in Dorset, but nudging just into east Devon - is blessed with awe-inspiring geological formations and fossil deposits that have garnered it recognition as England's only natural UNESCO World Heritage Site. Snaking east from Orcombe Point near Exmouth to Old Harry Rocks near Swanage, it's studded with monumental rock arches, seemingly endless shingle beaches and fossil beds from which treasures were prised that altered our understanding of prehistory.

- By Jo Caird - Photos by Justin Foulkes

After 20 minutes scouring Charmouth Beach, eyes flitting from side to side, I spot it: the unmistakable curve of ribbed shell half-embedded in a lump of mudstone - an ammonite. Gingerly, I rock the ancient fossil to and fro, easing it free from its petrified prison of who knows how many million years. Turning it over, marvelling at this miraculous object, I realise that I am the first person ever to hold it in my hand.

The Mary Anning Rocks sculpture celebrates Lyme Regis´s pioneering palaeontologist.

It's an auspicious start to my journey along the Jurassic Coast. This 95-mile stretch of shore mostly in Dorset, but nudging just into east Devon - is blessed with awe-inspiring geological formations and fossil deposits that have garnered it recognition as England's only natural UNESCO World Heritage Site. Snaking east from Orcombe Point near Exmouth to Old Harry Rocks near Swanage, it's studded with monumental rock arches, seemingly endless shingle beaches and fossil beds from which treasures were prised that altered our understanding of prehistory.

This extraordinary landscape was formed over the Mesozoic era, which began 250 million years ago and encompassed the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous periods. Layers of sediment deposited during periods of changing environmental conditions became tilted and crumpled by tectonic activity sparked by the breaking apart of the supercontinent Pangaea, and the subsequent formation of the continents as we know them now. Over the past few hundred thousand years, erosion has sculpted the dynamic coastline we see today.