Helmsdale is famous for its Giant superb corals which can simply be picked up from around the foreshore. There is plenty around and you are almost guaranteed to come home with at least one large well preserved coral.
Look out for bones and ammonites in the shale, some of these are washed out and can be found lying around the beach in between shingle. You can also find fossils in the mixed up boulder beds where both shale, cement and other rocks have been deposited in a very hard uneven bed.
Have a very good look at the un-deposited kimmeridge cement beds between bands of shale, these can contain bryzoa, corals, sea urchins & spines, fish fragments, jaw & vertebrae and dinosaur bones, Ammonites, Belemnites, shells, corals and more.the bone bearing beds are very different to the fish & fresh water beds whereby the surface is covered in corals and fish remains. Due to a massive fault known as the 'Helmsdale fault' it is hard to separate zones as these start and stop randomly across the foreshore, if you find a good bed, chances are just meters away it will vanish completely.
(Vertebrae in Kimmeridge Cement Stone) - 2003
Finally, keep an eye open for Devonian rocks from the Helmsdale Fault, as these have yielded complete fish, but are very rare, they are found within the fallen 'stacks' which contain devonian rocks mixed within the Jurassic. You may find these further up past the second area of kimmeridge bands.
