Whale Chine is a geological feature near Chale

Chalé

Chalé is a Brazilian municipality located in the state of Minas Gerais. The city belongs to the mesoregion of Zona da Mata and to the microregion of Manhuaçu.-See also:* List of municipalities in Minas Gerais-References:...

 on the south-west coast of the Isle of Wight

Isle of Wight

The Isle of Wight is a county and the largest island of England, located in the English Channel, on average about 2–4 miles off the south coast of the county of Hampshire, separated from the mainland by a strait called the Solent...

, England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 (the Back of the Wight

Back of the Wight

Back of the Wight is an area on the Isle of Wight, England that has a unique history and social background. Part of this stems from the fact that the area was and still is very cut off from the rest of the island and is made up of small villages strung out along the coast, such as Brighstone,...

). One of a number of such chine

Chine

A chine is a steep-sided river valley where the river flows through coastal cliffs to the sea. Typically these are soft eroding cliffs such as sandstone or clays. The word chine originates from the Saxon "Cinan" meaning a gap or yawn....

s on the island created by stream erosion of soft Cretaceous

Cretaceous

The Cretaceous , derived from the Latin "creta" , usually abbreviated K for its German translation Kreide , is a geologic period and system from circa to million years ago. In the geologic timescale, the Cretaceous follows the Jurassic period and is followed by the Paleogene period of the...

 rocks, it is a narrow and steep coastal ravine dropping 140 feet through Lower Greensand rocks from clifftop farmland to Chale Bay.

Its name probably originates from the Wavell family, owners of the nearby Atherfield Farm between 1557 and 1636. It is reached from a car park on the A3055 coastal road, where a stream running parallel to the cliff takes a right-angled bend to descend to the beach. Access down the Chine to the beach is sporadically available via wooden steps, but is currently impossible due to their destruction by coastal erosion.

Descent to the beach at Whale Chine is by some 126 wooden steps, The cliffs here were formed in a lake about 100 million years ago, and are famous for their fossilised oysters, ammonites and lobsters.

Whale Chine was the location of the wreck of the cargo ship Cormorant on 21 December 1886.