When you approach the Susaki peninsula on the coast of Seiyo from the south, it looks like a very big person lying face up in the sea. Japanese recognise this person as the deity Kannon and worship her on the peninsula with a large bronze statue and a bell.

At the tip of the peninsula, the sedimentary rocks have been thrust up at 90 degrees by some ancient calamity. The rock is formed of tuff, a sediment created by accumulation of volcanic ash on an ancient seabed. Favosites, otherwise known as honeycomb coral, made colonies on the ash some 400 million years ago. The fossils of this now extinct coral make up the layers in the rock. Similar rocks are found in Shirokawa in Seiyo, which is considered to have the same geology, known as the Kurosegawa Tectonic Zone. Only a few kilometers across, this zone is very narrow but long, extending from Kyūshu to Kantō. It’s believed to have been part of the very ancient Gondwana continent which predates most of the other geological material that makes up the Japanese archipelago.

A steep path leads down from the carpark on the top of the peninsula to a narrow walkway close to the shoreline from where you can observe the dramatic striated rocks up close.