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The Old Man of Hoy, seen from the ferry on the Scrabster to Stromness route (Explored 25: 25 Jun 2025)
The Old Man of Hoy, firmly standing as the real king of the North Sea, seen from the ferry on the Scrabster to Stromness route
The Old Man of Hoy is a 137-metre sea stack on Hoy, part of the Orkney archipelago off the north coast of Scotland. Formed from Old Red Sandstone, it is one of the tallest stacks in the United Kingdom. His story begins 400 million years ago when a massive freshwater lake, Lake Orcadie, covered the area from the south coast of the Moray Firth to Shetland in the north. Layers of sand were dumped onto volcanic rock at the bottom of the lake, building up like the rings of a great tree. Over time the lake disappeared, leaving a base of dark basalt lava and alternating layers of soft, sandy and pebbly sandstone and harder flagstones of Upper Old Red Sandstone. This gives the blocky, often overhung profile we see today. The Old Man started life as a slight kink in the coastline, which formed a headland that stuck out into the sea. The Blaeu map of 1600 and the McKenzie map of Hoy of 1750 both show the headland that was later to become the Old Man.
The Old Man stands close to Rackwick Bay on the west coast of Hoy, in Orkney, Scotland, and can be seen from the Scrabster to Stromness ferry. From certain angles it resembles a human figure.
For more info:
www.northlinkferries.co.uk/orkney-blog/the-geology-of-the...
The Old Man of Hoy, seen from the ferry on the Scrabster to Stromness route (Explored 25: 25 Jun 2025)
The Old Man of Hoy, firmly standing as the real king of the North Sea, seen from the ferry on the Scrabster to Stromness route
The Old Man of Hoy is a 137-metre sea stack on Hoy, part of the Orkney archipelago off the north coast of Scotland. Formed from Old Red Sandstone, it is one of the tallest stacks in the United Kingdom. His story begins 400 million years ago when a massive freshwater lake, Lake Orcadie, covered the area from the south coast of the Moray Firth to Shetland in the north. Layers of sand were dumped onto volcanic rock at the bottom of the lake, building up like the rings of a great tree. Over time the lake disappeared, leaving a base of dark basalt lava and alternating layers of soft, sandy and pebbly sandstone and harder flagstones of Upper Old Red Sandstone. This gives the blocky, often overhung profile we see today. The Old Man started life as a slight kink in the coastline, which formed a headland that stuck out into the sea. The Blaeu map of 1600 and the McKenzie map of Hoy of 1750 both show the headland that was later to become the Old Man.
The Old Man stands close to Rackwick Bay on the west coast of Hoy, in Orkney, Scotland, and can be seen from the Scrabster to Stromness ferry. From certain angles it resembles a human figure.
For more info:
www.northlinkferries.co.uk/orkney-blog/the-geology-of-the...