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Excitement is building down on Dorset’s Jurassic Coast as plans to build a huge Jurassic visitor attraction in a disused quarry on the Isle of Portland move a step closer.

Funding granted last year to set up a feasibility study has brought the the team behind the project to the point where a bid for national lottery funding amounting to £16m has been lodged and if successful will pave the way to securing further funds needed to cover the estimated cost of £70m for this potential world class attraction.

Jurassica Site from Jurassica on Vimeo.

Jurassica is an ambitious project to create a world-class heritage attraction on Dorset’s Jurassic Coast. To be located in a disused limestone quarry on the Isle of Portland, Jurassica will showcase and bring to life more than 200 million years of geological history preserved in the strata of the Dorset and East Devon coastlines.

Jurassica will showcase, interpret and bring to life more than 200 million years of geological history that are preserved in the strata of the Dorset and East Devon coastlines. These are the rocks whose fossils provided the world’s first geologists with the raw material to rewrite the history of our planet. The Jurassic Coast is one of the places that modern science began and up to now there has been no major accessible centre to explain to a wider public its importance. This is where evolution, Charles Darwin and the modern synthesis of life and our planet germinated.

The brainchild of Michael Hanlon, a national newspaper journalist and author who grew up in the county, Jurassica, a registered educational charity, has parallels to Cornwall’s Eden Project. Sir Tim Smit, the founder of the Eden Project is one of Jurassica’s trustees and Sir David Attenborough is the project’s patron.

Find out more about Jurassica at www.jurassica.org/