User:PaleCloudedWhite/sandbox2

Isle of Wight
(Listed clockwise from East Cowes)

Physical geography
Dorset covers an area of 2653 km2 and contains considerable variety in its underlying geology, which is partly responsible for the diversity of landscape. A large percentage (66%) of the county comprises either chalk, clay or mixed sand and gravels, but the remainder is more complex and contains hard rock such as Portland or Purbeck stone, other limestones, calcareous clays and shales. Both Portland and Purbeck stone are of national importance as a building material and for restoring some of Britain's most famous landmarks. Almost every type of rock known from the Early Jurassic epoch through to the Eocene epoch can be found within the county.



Dorset has a number of limestone ridges, which are mostly covered in either arable fields or calcareous grassland supporting sheep. These limestone areas include a wide band of Cretaceous chalk which crosses the county as a range of hills from north-east to south-west, incorporating Cranborne Chase and the Dorset Downs, and a narrow band running from south-west to south-east, incorporating the Purbeck Hills. Between the chalk hills are large, wide vales with wide flood plains. These vales are dotted with small villages, farms and coppices, and include the Blackmore Vale (Stour valley) and Frome valley. The Blackmore Vale is composed of older Jurassic deposits, largely clays interspersed with limestones, and has traditionally been a centre for dairy agriculture. South-east Dorset, including the lower Frome valley and around Poole and Bournemouth, lies on younger Eocene deposits, mainly sands and clays of poor agricultural quality. The soils created from these deposits support a heathland habitat which sustains all six native British reptile species. In the far west of the county there are frequent changes in rock strata, which appear in a less obviously sequential way compared to the chalklands and vales further east. This results in a hilly landscape of diverse character that resembles that of neighbouring West Country county Devon. Marshwood Vale, a valley of Lower Lias clay at the western tip of the county, lies to the south of the two highest points in Dorset: Lewesdon Hill at 279 m and Pilsdon Pen at 277 m.

A former river valley flooded by rising sea levels 6,000 years ago, Poole Harbour is one of the largest natural harbours in the world. The harbour is very shallow in places and contains a number of islands, notably Brownsea Island, the birthplace of the Scouting movement and one of the few remaining sanctuaries for indigenous red squirrels in England. The harbour, and the chalk and limestone hills of the Isle of Purbeck to the south, lie atop Western Europe's largest onshore oil field. The field, operated by BP from Wytch Farm, has the world's oldest continuously pumping well at Kimmeridge which has been producing oil since the early 1960s.

Dorset's varied geography also ensures it has a variety of rivers, although a modest annual rainfall averaging around 900 mm, coupled with rolling hills, means most are characteristically lowland in nature. Much of the county drains into three rivers, the Frome, Piddle and Stour which all flow to the sea in a south-easterly direction. The Frome and Piddle are chalk streams but the Stour, which rises in Wiltshire to the north, has its origins in clay soil. The River Avon, which flows mainly through Wiltshire and Hampshire, enters Dorset towards the end of its journey at Christchurch Harbour. The rivers Axe and Yeo, which principally drain the counties of Devon and Somerset respectively, have their sources in the north-west of the county, while in the south-west, a large number of small rivers run into the sea along the Dorset coastline; most notable of these are the Char, Brit, Bride and Wey.

Most of Dorset's coastline forms the major part of the Jurassic Coast, a World Heritage Site, which stretches for 95 miles between Exmouth in Devon and Studland in Dorset. This coast documents the entire Mesozoic era, from Triassic to Cretaceous and is noted for its geological landforms. The Dorset section has yielded important fossils, including the first complete Ichthyosaur and Jurassic trees. It also features notable coastal landforms, including textbook examples of a cove (Lulworth Cove), a natural arch (Durdle Door) and, at the most easterly part of the Jurassic Coast, the chalk stacks known as Old Harry Rocks. Jutting out into the English Channel at roughly the midpoint of the Dorset coastline is the Isle of Portland, a limestone island that is connected to the mainland by Chesil Beach, a 17 mi long shingle barrier beach protecting Britain's largest tidal lagoon.

The county has one of the highest proportion of conservation areas in England—including two Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty which together cover 53% of the county. There is also a 114 km World Heritage Site, two Heritage Coasts totaling 92 km and Sites of Special Scientific interest covering 199.45 km2. The South West Coast Path, a National Trail, runs along the Dorset coast from the Devon boundary to South Haven Point near Poole.

West Dorset parish populations

 * I had previously considered these IP edits to be the actions of a local resident who wasn't looking at the wider picture, hence my construction of the above table and my numerous attempts on the different IP talk pages to direct the editor to this page. A closer look at the article history however reveals something more disruptive. The first insertion of "small" was made by a registered editor on 25 July 2012 (here). An inspection of that editor's own talk page is illuminating, as is the edit they made here. Back to the history of this article, on 16 April 2013 an IP editor who geolocates to Calne in Wiltshire at first changed the 2001 Census population figure from 708 to 4 (see here), then almost immediately completely removed the whole sentence about the village's population (here). Subsequently a number of different IPs, geolocating to several towns in Wiltshire or Hampshire, have repeatedly inserted "small" and sometimes also removed the sourced sentence about the parish of Portesham being quite large:
 * 5 May 2013: Diff Geolocates to Winchester, Hampshire.
 * 11 June 2013: Diff Geolocates to Marlborough, Wiltshire.
 * 13 June 2013: Diff and Diff Geolocates to Winchester, Hampshire.
 * 14 June 2013 Diff Same IP as for 13 June
 * 20 June 2013 Diff Geolocates to Marlborough, Wiltshire.
 * 22 June 2013 Diff Geolocates to Salisbury, Wiltshire. This edit also changed "West Dorset administrative district" to "South Dorset administrative district", which doesn't actually exist.
 * 24 June 2013 Diff Geolocates to Calne, Wiltshire.
 * 6 July 2013 Diff Geolocates to Salisbury, Wiltshire.