Life and Death at the White Cliffs of Dover

On a clear day, peering across the English Channel from atop the White Cliffs of Dover, you can just make out the coast of France as a strip of pale land flecked with white, like paint peeling from a picket fence. Viewed from Dover, the French coast is a distant mirror, a continuation of the same geological phenomenon that constitutes the ivory-white cliffs beneath you, resembling massive pleated curtains turned to stone, or a frozen waterfall.

The chalk in the cliffs dates back to a distant subaquatic history, when the UK sat at the bottom of a vast sea abundant with single-celled algae called coccoliths. When they died, their skeletons accumulated at the bottom, forming the chalk at a rate of roughly half a millimeter per year. In some places, the chalk is up to five hundred meters deep.

Lower your gaze over the edge, and you’re staring into a chasm, a tugging white void that disperses onto a shallow, pebbled beach. A gust of wind pulls you and your mind makes the fall: four seconds down to a messy conclusion; a news headline, a wake of bereavement, and also nothing at all.