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I've always wanted to get into mining and caving, so this little mine was a pretty decent introduction to the underground and a great opportunity to test out some new mining gear picked up recently.
Chesil Beach is 18 miles (28 kilometres) long and, on average, 160 metres wide and rises to 12 metres in height. It is a pebble and shingle tombolo connecting Portland to Abbotsbury and then continuing north-westwards to West Bay near Bridport. It is the largest tombolo in the UK.
The pebbles are graded in size from fist-sized near Portland to pea-sized at Bridport. The pebbles are mainly a mix of flint and chert, with some quartzite pebbles from Buddleigh Salterton.
The origin of the beach continues to be argued over with some proposing it is actually two beaches. The stretch from West Bay to Abbotsbury appears to have different characteristics to the stretch from Abbotsbury to Portland.
Chesil Beach shelters Weymouth from the prevailing wind and waves and prevents the area being eroded by wave action. Evidence suggests that the beach is no longer being replenished by natural means.
The beach forms part of the Dorset and East Devon World Heritage Site, known as the Jurassic Coast.
Chesil Bank
It is above all an elemental place, made of sea, shingle and sky, its dominant sound always that of waves on moving stone: from the great surf and pounding “grounds of seas” of sou’westers, to the delicate laps and back-gurgling of the rare dead calm….
John Fowles
www.chesilbeach.org/Chesil/description.html
Chesil Beach is a linear shingle storm beach stretching from Portland in the south to West Bay in the north-west. At its widest it is up to 200 metres in width. The height of the beach is typically 11 metres above mean sea level.
The seaward face of the beach is steeply shelving and this continues below the sea level until it gradually levels off at around 18 metres below sea level some 300 metres offshore in the southern part of the beach. Further north the offshore depth is around 11 metres.
There is a clear southern limit to the beach where it meets the limestone of Portland, but the northern limit is less distinct and depends on the definition used. Various limits have been proposed from Abbotsbury to West Bay. Geologically there is some merit in these arguments, but for practical purposes the limit is taken as the pier at West Bay. The pier is an effective barrier to longshore drift into or away from Chesil Beach.
The beach stabilised close to its present position some 5000 years ago. Since then it has been advancing slowly towards the mainland. Current estimates suggest that at the southern end this rate of advance is around 15 cms per year, with a slower rate further north. This advance occurs under storm conditions and is caused either by over-topping waves or by cann action where the water comes through the beach pushing quantities of pebbles out into the Fleet. This advancement is slowly causing increasing isolation of the various segments of the beach between Abbotsbury and West Bay.
Under storm conditions large quantities of pebbles can be removed from the beach onto the seabed. For severe storms the quantities can exceed 3 Million tonnes. Subsequent wave action then replaces these pebbles on the front of the beach.
There appears to be two types of storm conditions that affect Chesil Beach. The majority of storms are deep depressions approaching from the south-west where the combination of strong winds and low barometric pressure can produce storm surges in the English Channel combined with high local waves. A rarer type, but potentially more dramatic in impact, occurs when large storms out in the Atlantic generate huge, long-period swell waves that travel up the Channel and impact the Beach. Such waves can have a period of up to 20 seconds, compared with the 5-10 second period of local storm waves. Two such events are known to have occurred in 1904 and 1979.
www.chesilbeach.org/Chesil/formation.html
The formation of Chesil Beach has been much discussed over the years and is still the subject of continuing debate. Continuing research yields further insights into the origin of the material that forms the beach and how it was transported to its current location. This page presents a summary of one current view suggested by Malcolm Bray of Portsmouth University, a member of the Fleet Study Group. A more detailed document can be downloded here.
Chesil Beach initially formed from predominantly sandy deposits in Lyme Bay as water levels rose rapidly at the end of the last ice age 20,000-14,000 years ago. These deposits were eroded and the sand and gravel driven onshore as a barrier beach. As the barrier beach was driven further east by rising sea levels it overrode existing sediments and the Fleet was formed starting about 7000 years ago. The formation of the Fleet was virtually complete by 5000 years ago.
Sea levels stabilised 4000-5000 years ago and at that time Chesil Beach stood close to its present position. It was predominantly sandy with layers of shell and coarser material indicating over-washing by the sea.
At this time relict cliffs in East Devon, left stranded by falling sea levels during the ice age, were re-activated and the combination of re-working of extensive debris aprons and erosion of existing cliffs yielded large quantities of gravel. Estimates suggest that as much as 60 million cubic metres of gravel could have been supplied. This material was transported to Chesil Beach by longshore drift via a series of pocket beaches.
Coastal recession and human intervention have now depleted the beaches to the west of West Bay, resulting in increased prominence of the headlands. This has cut off the supply of material to Chesil Beach
Chesil Beach must now be regarded as a closed shingle system with no replenishment from outside sources. It is therefore sensitive to environmental changes such as rising sea levels. Ian West has suggested that Chesil Beach at Portland is moving eastward at around 15cm per year, with a much slower rate further north towards Abbotsbury.
www.chesilbeach.org/Chesil/pebbles.html
Chesil Beach is made up almost entirely of pebbles of various rock types. The only exception is in the north-west section of the beach from West Bexington to West Bay where there is some fine gravel and coarse sand overlaying the lower levels of the beach near the tide line. The pebbles are graded in size from fist-sized near Portland to pea-sized at West Bay.
The types of pebble that can be found are:
Flint
Flint originates from the chalk beds. They include the slightly brownish pebbles, most of the medium grey pebbles and also the less well- rounded pebbles. They are extremely hard, harder than most steels.
Chert
The chert pebbles are also extremely hard and originate from the upper greensand beds. They are often fairly clear and translucent with a pink or bluish tinge.
Quartzite
Quartzite pebbles originate from around Buddleigh Salterton and are discoidal pebbles coloured red, purple "liver-coloured", or white.
Granite
Granite is occasionally found on Chesil Beach. It can be identified by the coarse grain size, the pink or white feldspar, the quartz of glassy grey appearance, and the black mafic minerals, normally mica and/or hornblende. These pebbles probably originated from further west on the south-west peninsula or may have come from the ballast of ships wrecked on the beach..
Porphyry
These pebbles most probably come from the Permian breccia in Dawlish, Devon. They are similar to granite in appearance, but the crystal structure is rather different. They are comparatively rare on Chesil Beach.
Tourmalised rock
Pebbles of hard black, finely granular material are common. Somewhat irregular pebble of vein quartz, stained yellowish, and tourmalinised slate, all sheared and partially brecciated. The pebbles are usually irregular in shape as the tourmaline is quite brittle.
Breccia
A breccia is a rock of angular fragments. Only breccias that have been cemented strongly in hard silica can survive on Chesil Beach.
Portland stone
At Chiswell there are some limestone pebbles originating from the local Portland and Purbeck stone formations.
Kimmeridge oil shale
There is evidence that there was once an outcrop of oil shale on the back of Chesil Beach near Victoria Square on Portland. Pieces of shale can still be found on the beach and probably come from an outcrop under the sea off Chiswell.
Fossils
These are mostly found around Burton Bradstock and originate from the local cliffs.
Magnetite
This is believed to originate from the cargos of ships wrecked on Chesil Beach. The major concentration is near Abbotsbury and is believed to come from the SS Dorothea.
Peat
Pieces of peat can be found on Chesil Beach, particularly after storms. It comes from outcrops below the low tide level. It is mostly found at Chiswell and in an area around the tank defences at Abbotsbury
Pumice stone
Pieces of pumice stone are sometimes found washed up on the beach. Pumice is lava foam from volcanoes and contains sufficient air pockets to float. The stones on Chesil almost certainly came from volcanoes in the Caribbean Sea or central America. The colour varies from dark grey to almost white. They can be recognised by the large number of air pockets and that they are very light.
Others
Also found on Chesil Beach are Jasper, Agate, and Madrepores, but these are all very rare.
Further information
For a more detailed discussion of the pebbles that make up Chesil Beach visit Ian West's excellent website at Southampton University.
www.chesilbeach.org/Chesil/speclst.html
Chesil Beach is a major shingle beach and provides a maritime shingle environment. The seaward side of the beach is highly mobile under storm conditions and cannot support any plant communities. The eastern side of the beach is much more stable enabling plant communities to get established. In some areas the beach is sufficiently stable for a turf to form, particularly at Ferrybridge.
Apart from plants, the beach supports a rich variety of lichens and a few mosses. There are very few shrubs and no trees growing on the beach.
There is sufficient food from the plants and other sources to support a few mammals and the beach is used by a number of bird species for nesting.
The lists below show species that actually live, hunt, and/or nest on the beach. Transient species such as migrant birds are not included. Click on the groups below to see the species lists.
www.chesilbeach.org/chesil/specbirds.html
Skylark, Meadow Pipit, Ringed Plover, Linnet, Oystercatcher, Reed Bunting, Pied Wagtail, Common Tern, Little Tern,
www.chesilbeach.org/Chesil/specmamms.html
Fox, Hare, Roe Deer, Hare, Hedgehog, Long-tailed Field Mouse, Short-tailed Vole, Grey Squirrel,
www.chesilbeach.org/chesil/specplants.html
Common nameSpeciesW
Sea couchAgropyron pungens
Silvery hair grassAira caryophylla
Early hair grassAira praecox
Scarlet pimpernelAnagallis arvensis
Kidney vetchAnthyllis vulneraria
ThriftAmeria maritima
Thyme-leaved sandwortArenaria serpyllifolia
Tall oat-grassArrhenatherum elatius
Sea beetBeta vulgaris
Darnel's grassCatapodium marinum
Common centauryCentaurium erythraea
Red valerianCentranthus ruber
Common mouse-earCerastium fontanum
Sea mouse-earCerastium diffusum
Creeping thistleCirsium arvense
Danish scurvygrassCochlearia danica
Sea kaleCrambe maritima
SamphireCrithmum maritimum
CocksfootDactylus glomerata
Sea spurgeEuphorbia paralias
Portland spurgeEuphorbia portlandica
Red fescueFestuca ruba
Lady's bedstrawGalium verum
Herb robertgeranium robertianum
Yellow horned poppyGlaucium flavum
Sea-purslaneHalimione portulacoides
Common velvet grassHolcus lanatus
Tree mallowLavatera arborea
Sea peaLathyrus japonicus
Bird's foot trefoilLotus corniculatus
Common mallowMalva sylvestris
RestharrowOnonis repens
Lesser broomrapeOrobanche minor var minor
Buck's-horn plantainPlantago coronopus
Ribwort plantainPlantago lanceolata
BlackthornPrunus spinosa
BlackberryRubus fruticosa agg.
Curled dockRumex crispus
Procumbent pearlwortSagina procumbens
Biting stonecropSedum acre
Sea campionSilene maritima
Woody nightshadeSolanum dulcamera
Black nightshadeSolanum nigrum
Perennial sow-thistleSonchus arvensis
Shrubby sea blightSuaeda fruticosa
Annual sea blightSuaeda maritima
DandelionTaraxacum officinale
Breckland thymeThymus serpyllum
Haresfoot cloverTrifolium arvense
Lesser trefoilTrifolium dubium
Rough cloverTrifolium scabrum
Sea mayweedTripleurospermum maritimum
The information presented here has been derived from the following sources:
Colombe,S.V., Diaz,A. Plant communities of Chesil Beach. Lyme Bay Environmental Study Vol12. Kerr-McGee Oil(UK) plc, 1995.
Fitzpatrick,J.M. Terrestial plant communities of the Chesil Beach and the shores of the Fleet. In: The Fleet and Chesil Beach Ladle, M. (Ed). Fleet Study Group, 1981.
Eden,S.M. Flowering plants of the shores of the Fleet. In: The Fleet Lagoon and Chesil Beach. Carr,A.P., Seaward,D.R., and Sterling,P.H. (Eds).2000.
and personal observation by Fleet volunteers.
Chesil Beach is 18 miles (28 kilometres) long and, on average, 160 metres wide and rises to 12 metres in height. It is a pebble and shingle tombolo connecting Portland to Abbotsbury and then continuing north-westwards to West Bay near Bridport. It is the largest tombolo in the UK.
The pebbles are graded in size from fist-sized near Portland to pea-sized at Bridport. The pebbles are mainly a mix of flint and chert, with some quartzite pebbles from Buddleigh Salterton.
The origin of the beach continues to be argued over with some proposing it is actually two beaches. The stretch from West Bay to Abbotsbury appears to have different characteristics to the stretch from Abbotsbury to Portland.
Chesil Beach shelters Weymouth from the prevailing wind and waves and prevents the area being eroded by wave action. Evidence suggests that the beach is no longer being replenished by natural means.
The beach forms part of the Dorset and East Devon World Heritage Site, known as the Jurassic Coast.
Chesil Bank
It is above all an elemental place, made of sea, shingle and sky, its dominant sound always that of waves on moving stone: from the great surf and pounding “grounds of seas” of sou’westers, to the delicate laps and back-gurgling of the rare dead calm….
John Fowles
www.chesilbeach.org/Chesil/description.html
Chesil Beach is a linear shingle storm beach stretching from Portland in the south to West Bay in the north-west. At its widest it is up to 200 metres in width. The height of the beach is typically 11 metres above mean sea level.
The seaward face of the beach is steeply shelving and this continues below the sea level until it gradually levels off at around 18 metres below sea level some 300 metres offshore in the southern part of the beach. Further north the offshore depth is around 11 metres.
There is a clear southern limit to the beach where it meets the limestone of Portland, but the northern limit is less distinct and depends on the definition used. Various limits have been proposed from Abbotsbury to West Bay. Geologically there is some merit in these arguments, but for practical purposes the limit is taken as the pier at West Bay. The pier is an effective barrier to longshore drift into or away from Chesil Beach.
The beach stabilised close to its present position some 5000 years ago. Since then it has been advancing slowly towards the mainland. Current estimates suggest that at the southern end this rate of advance is around 15 cms per year, with a slower rate further north. This advance occurs under storm conditions and is caused either by over-topping waves or by cann action where the water comes through the beach pushing quantities of pebbles out into the Fleet. This advancement is slowly causing increasing isolation of the various segments of the beach between Abbotsbury and West Bay.
Under storm conditions large quantities of pebbles can be removed from the beach onto the seabed. For severe storms the quantities can exceed 3 Million tonnes. Subsequent wave action then replaces these pebbles on the front of the beach.
There appears to be two types of storm conditions that affect Chesil Beach. The majority of storms are deep depressions approaching from the south-west where the combination of strong winds and low barometric pressure can produce storm surges in the English Channel combined with high local waves. A rarer type, but potentially more dramatic in impact, occurs when large storms out in the Atlantic generate huge, long-period swell waves that travel up the Channel and impact the Beach. Such waves can have a period of up to 20 seconds, compared with the 5-10 second period of local storm waves. Two such events are known to have occurred in 1904 and 1979.
www.chesilbeach.org/Chesil/formation.html
The formation of Chesil Beach has been much discussed over the years and is still the subject of continuing debate. Continuing research yields further insights into the origin of the material that forms the beach and how it was transported to its current location. This page presents a summary of one current view suggested by Malcolm Bray of Portsmouth University, a member of the Fleet Study Group. A more detailed document can be downloded here.
Chesil Beach initially formed from predominantly sandy deposits in Lyme Bay as water levels rose rapidly at the end of the last ice age 20,000-14,000 years ago. These deposits were eroded and the sand and gravel driven onshore as a barrier beach. As the barrier beach was driven further east by rising sea levels it overrode existing sediments and the Fleet was formed starting about 7000 years ago. The formation of the Fleet was virtually complete by 5000 years ago.
Sea levels stabilised 4000-5000 years ago and at that time Chesil Beach stood close to its present position. It was predominantly sandy with layers of shell and coarser material indicating over-washing by the sea.
At this time relict cliffs in East Devon, left stranded by falling sea levels during the ice age, were re-activated and the combination of re-working of extensive debris aprons and erosion of existing cliffs yielded large quantities of gravel. Estimates suggest that as much as 60 million cubic metres of gravel could have been supplied. This material was transported to Chesil Beach by longshore drift via a series of pocket beaches.
Coastal recession and human intervention have now depleted the beaches to the west of West Bay, resulting in increased prominence of the headlands. This has cut off the supply of material to Chesil Beach
Chesil Beach must now be regarded as a closed shingle system with no replenishment from outside sources. It is therefore sensitive to environmental changes such as rising sea levels. Ian West has suggested that Chesil Beach at Portland is moving eastward at around 15cm per year, with a much slower rate further north towards Abbotsbury.
www.chesilbeach.org/Chesil/pebbles.html
Chesil Beach is made up almost entirely of pebbles of various rock types. The only exception is in the north-west section of the beach from West Bexington to West Bay where there is some fine gravel and coarse sand overlaying the lower levels of the beach near the tide line. The pebbles are graded in size from fist-sized near Portland to pea-sized at West Bay.
The types of pebble that can be found are:
Flint
Flint originates from the chalk beds. They include the slightly brownish pebbles, most of the medium grey pebbles and also the less well- rounded pebbles. They are extremely hard, harder than most steels.
Chert
The chert pebbles are also extremely hard and originate from the upper greensand beds. They are often fairly clear and translucent with a pink or bluish tinge.
Quartzite
Quartzite pebbles originate from around Buddleigh Salterton and are discoidal pebbles coloured red, purple "liver-coloured", or white.
Granite
Granite is occasionally found on Chesil Beach. It can be identified by the coarse grain size, the pink or white feldspar, the quartz of glassy grey appearance, and the black mafic minerals, normally mica and/or hornblende. These pebbles probably originated from further west on the south-west peninsula or may have come from the ballast of ships wrecked on the beach..
Porphyry
These pebbles most probably come from the Permian breccia in Dawlish, Devon. They are similar to granite in appearance, but the crystal structure is rather different. They are comparatively rare on Chesil Beach.
Tourmalised rock
Pebbles of hard black, finely granular material are common. Somewhat irregular pebble of vein quartz, stained yellowish, and tourmalinised slate, all sheared and partially brecciated. The pebbles are usually irregular in shape as the tourmaline is quite brittle.
Breccia
A breccia is a rock of angular fragments. Only breccias that have been cemented strongly in hard silica can survive on Chesil Beach.
Portland stone
At Chiswell there are some limestone pebbles originating from the local Portland and Purbeck stone formations.
Kimmeridge oil shale
There is evidence that there was once an outcrop of oil shale on the back of Chesil Beach near Victoria Square on Portland. Pieces of shale can still be found on the beach and probably come from an outcrop under the sea off Chiswell.
Fossils
These are mostly found around Burton Bradstock and originate from the local cliffs.
Magnetite
This is believed to originate from the cargos of ships wrecked on Chesil Beach. The major concentration is near Abbotsbury and is believed to come from the SS Dorothea.
Peat
Pieces of peat can be found on Chesil Beach, particularly after storms. It comes from outcrops below the low tide level. It is mostly found at Chiswell and in an area around the tank defences at Abbotsbury
Pumice stone
Pieces of pumice stone are sometimes found washed up on the beach. Pumice is lava foam from volcanoes and contains sufficient air pockets to float. The stones on Chesil almost certainly came from volcanoes in the Caribbean Sea or central America. The colour varies from dark grey to almost white. They can be recognised by the large number of air pockets and that they are very light.
Others
Also found on Chesil Beach are Jasper, Agate, and Madrepores, but these are all very rare.
Further information
For a more detailed discussion of the pebbles that make up Chesil Beach visit Ian West's excellent website at Southampton University.
www.chesilbeach.org/Chesil/speclst.html
Chesil Beach is a major shingle beach and provides a maritime shingle environment. The seaward side of the beach is highly mobile under storm conditions and cannot support any plant communities. The eastern side of the beach is much more stable enabling plant communities to get established. In some areas the beach is sufficiently stable for a turf to form, particularly at Ferrybridge.
Apart from plants, the beach supports a rich variety of lichens and a few mosses. There are very few shrubs and no trees growing on the beach.
There is sufficient food from the plants and other sources to support a few mammals and the beach is used by a number of bird species for nesting.
The lists below show species that actually live, hunt, and/or nest on the beach. Transient species such as migrant birds are not included. Click on the groups below to see the species lists.
www.chesilbeach.org/chesil/specbirds.html
Skylark, Meadow Pipit, Ringed Plover, Linnet, Oystercatcher, Reed Bunting, Pied Wagtail, Common Tern, Little Tern,
www.chesilbeach.org/Chesil/specmamms.html
Fox, Hare, Roe Deer, Hare, Hedgehog, Long-tailed Field Mouse, Short-tailed Vole, Grey Squirrel,
www.chesilbeach.org/chesil/specplants.html
Common nameSpeciesW
Sea couchAgropyron pungens
Silvery hair grassAira caryophylla
Early hair grassAira praecox
Scarlet pimpernelAnagallis arvensis
Kidney vetchAnthyllis vulneraria
ThriftAmeria maritima
Thyme-leaved sandwortArenaria serpyllifolia
Tall oat-grassArrhenatherum elatius
Sea beetBeta vulgaris
Darnel's grassCatapodium marinum
Common centauryCentaurium erythraea
Red valerianCentranthus ruber
Common mouse-earCerastium fontanum
Sea mouse-earCerastium diffusum
Creeping thistleCirsium arvense
Danish scurvygrassCochlearia danica
Sea kaleCrambe maritima
SamphireCrithmum maritimum
CocksfootDactylus glomerata
Sea spurgeEuphorbia paralias
Portland spurgeEuphorbia portlandica
Red fescueFestuca ruba
Lady's bedstrawGalium verum
Herb robertgeranium robertianum
Yellow horned poppyGlaucium flavum
Sea-purslaneHalimione portulacoides
Common velvet grassHolcus lanatus
Tree mallowLavatera arborea
Sea peaLathyrus japonicus
Bird's foot trefoilLotus corniculatus
Common mallowMalva sylvestris
RestharrowOnonis repens
Lesser broomrapeOrobanche minor var minor
Buck's-horn plantainPlantago coronopus
Ribwort plantainPlantago lanceolata
BlackthornPrunus spinosa
BlackberryRubus fruticosa agg.
Curled dockRumex crispus
Procumbent pearlwortSagina procumbens
Biting stonecropSedum acre
Sea campionSilene maritima
Woody nightshadeSolanum dulcamera
Black nightshadeSolanum nigrum
Perennial sow-thistleSonchus arvensis
Shrubby sea blightSuaeda fruticosa
Annual sea blightSuaeda maritima
DandelionTaraxacum officinale
Breckland thymeThymus serpyllum
Haresfoot cloverTrifolium arvense
Lesser trefoilTrifolium dubium
Rough cloverTrifolium scabrum
Sea mayweedTripleurospermum maritimum
The information presented here has been derived from the following sources:
Colombe,S.V., Diaz,A. Plant communities of Chesil Beach. Lyme Bay Environmental Study Vol12. Kerr-McGee Oil(UK) plc, 1995.
Fitzpatrick,J.M. Terrestial plant communities of the Chesil Beach and the shores of the Fleet. In: The Fleet and Chesil Beach Ladle, M. (Ed). Fleet Study Group, 1981.
Eden,S.M. Flowering plants of the shores of the Fleet. In: The Fleet Lagoon and Chesil Beach. Carr,A.P., Seaward,D.R., and Sterling,P.H. (Eds).2000.
and personal observation by Fleet volunteers.
Views of the rocky coastline of the south coast of NSW, the rocks here being some of the oldest along the east coast of Australia dating to over 450 millions years ago and consist of shale, chert and greywacke
Started by William Fraser McCallum and his three brothers as a partnership in 1904, McCallum Bros Ltd has continued to be a family-run operation with all ownership remaining in New Zealand.
The partnership began with a small 40 tonne wooden scow "Pahiki" used for coastal trading.
More scows were bought for the increased trade in red shingle which was delivered from Pakihi Island to customers within the Auckland Region and Hauraki Plains.
At first the shingle was loaded onto the scows by shovelling it into wheel barrows and then pushing these up planks to the hold.
This labour intensive method was eventually replaced as quarries were established.
Quarrying of red chert started on Pakihi Island in 1906 and continued until 1927 after a quarry which had been established on adjacent Karamuramu Island in 1908 took over production. A lone wharf pile off the south-western side of Pakihi Island was the only remnant of the Pakihi quarry still visible from the sea in 2006 (subsequently claimed by the sea).
If I had never seen a horse this is the horse I would want to see first and imprint into my memory forever, for when you speak of horses.
................................................................................................................................
Series to be published "World Book Of Horse Breeds" as the example of the American Mustang.
............................................................................................................................... The last three percent of untouched Tallgrass Prairie left in North America is in the Flint Hills of Kansas and the Osage Hills in Extreme Northern Oklahoma. The Flint Hills Tallgrass Prairie is clearly the last significant expanse of a unique prairie ecosystem and it needs to be protected and preserved for future generations.
The Flint Hills, in the eastern part of the state, fan out over 183 miles from north to south, stretching 30 to 40 miles wide in parts, the land folding into itself, then popping up in gentle bumps, with mounds looming far off on the horizon. Seemingly endless, the landscape offers up isolated images — a wind-whipped cottonwood tree, a rusted cattle pen, a spindly windmill, an abandoned limestone schoolhouse, the metal-gated entrance to a hilltop cemetery.The hills are named after another native stone, flintlike chert that Indians used to make tools. Many artifacts have been found at area quarries.
The Flint Hills in Kansas and in Oklahoma are North America’s largest remaining tract of tallgrass prairie. The preserve is at its full glory in late spring, when yellow, white, purple and blue wildflowers pop up amid a sea of green grass. The grass is tallest, about waist high in the fall.
Copyright © All Rights Reserved Images are the property of Prairie Fire Imaging and may not be reproduced without permission
Limestone boulders are wedged between the chert walls of the gorge at Tengu Falls in Ogose Town, Saitama, Japan.
埼玉県越生町黒山三滝の天狗滝
Rodeo Beach, located in the Fort Cronkhite area of the Marin Headlands, is one of the most special places in the Golden Gate National Recreation Area with access to multiple trails, fantastic views, a dog-friendly beach, fascinating geology, and an interesting history. As a pocket beach, Rodeo Beach sands do not migrate up or down the coast. Instead, they are carried a short distance offshore in winter, tumble about in the surf, and then return to replenish the beach in the spring and summer. Thus, the sands of Rodeo Beach are native to the Marin Headlands and reflect the Franciscan geology of the closest hills and cliffs. This earthcache focuses on the abundant radiolarian chert and rare carnelian pebbles.
Chesil Beach is 18 miles (28 kilometres) long and, on average, 160 metres wide and rises to 12 metres in height. It is a pebble and shingle tombolo connecting Portland to Abbotsbury and then continuing north-westwards to West Bay near Bridport. It is the largest tombolo in the UK.
The pebbles are graded in size from fist-sized near Portland to pea-sized at Bridport. The pebbles are mainly a mix of flint and chert, with some quartzite pebbles from Buddleigh Salterton.
The origin of the beach continues to be argued over with some proposing it is actually two beaches. The stretch from West Bay to Abbotsbury appears to have different characteristics to the stretch from Abbotsbury to Portland.
Chesil Beach shelters Weymouth from the prevailing wind and waves and prevents the area being eroded by wave action. Evidence suggests that the beach is no longer being replenished by natural means.
The beach forms part of the Dorset and East Devon World Heritage Site, known as the Jurassic Coast.
Chesil Bank
It is above all an elemental place, made of sea, shingle and sky, its dominant sound always that of waves on moving stone: from the great surf and pounding “grounds of seas” of sou’westers, to the delicate laps and back-gurgling of the rare dead calm….
John Fowles
www.chesilbeach.org/Chesil/description.html
Chesil Beach is a linear shingle storm beach stretching from Portland in the south to West Bay in the north-west. At its widest it is up to 200 metres in width. The height of the beach is typically 11 metres above mean sea level.
The seaward face of the beach is steeply shelving and this continues below the sea level until it gradually levels off at around 18 metres below sea level some 300 metres offshore in the southern part of the beach. Further north the offshore depth is around 11 metres.
There is a clear southern limit to the beach where it meets the limestone of Portland, but the northern limit is less distinct and depends on the definition used. Various limits have been proposed from Abbotsbury to West Bay. Geologically there is some merit in these arguments, but for practical purposes the limit is taken as the pier at West Bay. The pier is an effective barrier to longshore drift into or away from Chesil Beach.
The beach stabilised close to its present position some 5000 years ago. Since then it has been advancing slowly towards the mainland. Current estimates suggest that at the southern end this rate of advance is around 15 cms per year, with a slower rate further north. This advance occurs under storm conditions and is caused either by over-topping waves or by cann action where the water comes through the beach pushing quantities of pebbles out into the Fleet. This advancement is slowly causing increasing isolation of the various segments of the beach between Abbotsbury and West Bay.
Under storm conditions large quantities of pebbles can be removed from the beach onto the seabed. For severe storms the quantities can exceed 3 Million tonnes. Subsequent wave action then replaces these pebbles on the front of the beach.
There appears to be two types of storm conditions that affect Chesil Beach. The majority of storms are deep depressions approaching from the south-west where the combination of strong winds and low barometric pressure can produce storm surges in the English Channel combined with high local waves. A rarer type, but potentially more dramatic in impact, occurs when large storms out in the Atlantic generate huge, long-period swell waves that travel up the Channel and impact the Beach. Such waves can have a period of up to 20 seconds, compared with the 5-10 second period of local storm waves. Two such events are known to have occurred in 1904 and 1979.
www.chesilbeach.org/Chesil/formation.html
The formation of Chesil Beach has been much discussed over the years and is still the subject of continuing debate. Continuing research yields further insights into the origin of the material that forms the beach and how it was transported to its current location. This page presents a summary of one current view suggested by Malcolm Bray of Portsmouth University, a member of the Fleet Study Group. A more detailed document can be downloded here.
Chesil Beach initially formed from predominantly sandy deposits in Lyme Bay as water levels rose rapidly at the end of the last ice age 20,000-14,000 years ago. These deposits were eroded and the sand and gravel driven onshore as a barrier beach. As the barrier beach was driven further east by rising sea levels it overrode existing sediments and the Fleet was formed starting about 7000 years ago. The formation of the Fleet was virtually complete by 5000 years ago.
Sea levels stabilised 4000-5000 years ago and at that time Chesil Beach stood close to its present position. It was predominantly sandy with layers of shell and coarser material indicating over-washing by the sea.
At this time relict cliffs in East Devon, left stranded by falling sea levels during the ice age, were re-activated and the combination of re-working of extensive debris aprons and erosion of existing cliffs yielded large quantities of gravel. Estimates suggest that as much as 60 million cubic metres of gravel could have been supplied. This material was transported to Chesil Beach by longshore drift via a series of pocket beaches.
Coastal recession and human intervention have now depleted the beaches to the west of West Bay, resulting in increased prominence of the headlands. This has cut off the supply of material to Chesil Beach
Chesil Beach must now be regarded as a closed shingle system with no replenishment from outside sources. It is therefore sensitive to environmental changes such as rising sea levels. Ian West has suggested that Chesil Beach at Portland is moving eastward at around 15cm per year, with a much slower rate further north towards Abbotsbury.
www.chesilbeach.org/Chesil/pebbles.html
Chesil Beach is made up almost entirely of pebbles of various rock types. The only exception is in the north-west section of the beach from West Bexington to West Bay where there is some fine gravel and coarse sand overlaying the lower levels of the beach near the tide line. The pebbles are graded in size from fist-sized near Portland to pea-sized at West Bay.
The types of pebble that can be found are:
Flint
Flint originates from the chalk beds. They include the slightly brownish pebbles, most of the medium grey pebbles and also the less well- rounded pebbles. They are extremely hard, harder than most steels.
Chert
The chert pebbles are also extremely hard and originate from the upper greensand beds. They are often fairly clear and translucent with a pink or bluish tinge.
Quartzite
Quartzite pebbles originate from around Buddleigh Salterton and are discoidal pebbles coloured red, purple "liver-coloured", or white.
Granite
Granite is occasionally found on Chesil Beach. It can be identified by the coarse grain size, the pink or white feldspar, the quartz of glassy grey appearance, and the black mafic minerals, normally mica and/or hornblende. These pebbles probably originated from further west on the south-west peninsula or may have come from the ballast of ships wrecked on the beach..
Porphyry
These pebbles most probably come from the Permian breccia in Dawlish, Devon. They are similar to granite in appearance, but the crystal structure is rather different. They are comparatively rare on Chesil Beach.
Tourmalised rock
Pebbles of hard black, finely granular material are common. Somewhat irregular pebble of vein quartz, stained yellowish, and tourmalinised slate, all sheared and partially brecciated. The pebbles are usually irregular in shape as the tourmaline is quite brittle.
Breccia
A breccia is a rock of angular fragments. Only breccias that have been cemented strongly in hard silica can survive on Chesil Beach.
Portland stone
At Chiswell there are some limestone pebbles originating from the local Portland and Purbeck stone formations.
Kimmeridge oil shale
There is evidence that there was once an outcrop of oil shale on the back of Chesil Beach near Victoria Square on Portland. Pieces of shale can still be found on the beach and probably come from an outcrop under the sea off Chiswell.
Fossils
These are mostly found around Burton Bradstock and originate from the local cliffs.
Magnetite
This is believed to originate from the cargos of ships wrecked on Chesil Beach. The major concentration is near Abbotsbury and is believed to come from the SS Dorothea.
Peat
Pieces of peat can be found on Chesil Beach, particularly after storms. It comes from outcrops below the low tide level. It is mostly found at Chiswell and in an area around the tank defences at Abbotsbury
Pumice stone
Pieces of pumice stone are sometimes found washed up on the beach. Pumice is lava foam from volcanoes and contains sufficient air pockets to float. The stones on Chesil almost certainly came from volcanoes in the Caribbean Sea or central America. The colour varies from dark grey to almost white. They can be recognised by the large number of air pockets and that they are very light.
Others
Also found on Chesil Beach are Jasper, Agate, and Madrepores, but these are all very rare.
Further information
For a more detailed discussion of the pebbles that make up Chesil Beach visit Ian West's excellent website at Southampton University.
www.chesilbeach.org/Chesil/speclst.html
Chesil Beach is a major shingle beach and provides a maritime shingle environment. The seaward side of the beach is highly mobile under storm conditions and cannot support any plant communities. The eastern side of the beach is much more stable enabling plant communities to get established. In some areas the beach is sufficiently stable for a turf to form, particularly at Ferrybridge.
Apart from plants, the beach supports a rich variety of lichens and a few mosses. There are very few shrubs and no trees growing on the beach.
There is sufficient food from the plants and other sources to support a few mammals and the beach is used by a number of bird species for nesting.
The lists below show species that actually live, hunt, and/or nest on the beach. Transient species such as migrant birds are not included. Click on the groups below to see the species lists.
www.chesilbeach.org/chesil/specbirds.html
Skylark, Meadow Pipit, Ringed Plover, Linnet, Oystercatcher, Reed Bunting, Pied Wagtail, Common Tern, Little Tern,
www.chesilbeach.org/Chesil/specmamms.html
Fox, Hare, Roe Deer, Hare, Hedgehog, Long-tailed Field Mouse, Short-tailed Vole, Grey Squirrel,
www.chesilbeach.org/chesil/specplants.html
Common nameSpeciesW
Sea couchAgropyron pungens
Silvery hair grassAira caryophylla
Early hair grassAira praecox
Scarlet pimpernelAnagallis arvensis
Kidney vetchAnthyllis vulneraria
ThriftAmeria maritima
Thyme-leaved sandwortArenaria serpyllifolia
Tall oat-grassArrhenatherum elatius
Sea beetBeta vulgaris
Darnel's grassCatapodium marinum
Common centauryCentaurium erythraea
Red valerianCentranthus ruber
Common mouse-earCerastium fontanum
Sea mouse-earCerastium diffusum
Creeping thistleCirsium arvense
Danish scurvygrassCochlearia danica
Sea kaleCrambe maritima
SamphireCrithmum maritimum
CocksfootDactylus glomerata
Sea spurgeEuphorbia paralias
Portland spurgeEuphorbia portlandica
Red fescueFestuca ruba
Lady's bedstrawGalium verum
Herb robertgeranium robertianum
Yellow horned poppyGlaucium flavum
Sea-purslaneHalimione portulacoides
Common velvet grassHolcus lanatus
Tree mallowLavatera arborea
Sea peaLathyrus japonicus
Bird's foot trefoilLotus corniculatus
Common mallowMalva sylvestris
RestharrowOnonis repens
Lesser broomrapeOrobanche minor var minor
Buck's-horn plantainPlantago coronopus
Ribwort plantainPlantago lanceolata
BlackthornPrunus spinosa
BlackberryRubus fruticosa agg.
Curled dockRumex crispus
Procumbent pearlwortSagina procumbens
Biting stonecropSedum acre
Sea campionSilene maritima
Woody nightshadeSolanum dulcamera
Black nightshadeSolanum nigrum
Perennial sow-thistleSonchus arvensis
Shrubby sea blightSuaeda fruticosa
Annual sea blightSuaeda maritima
DandelionTaraxacum officinale
Breckland thymeThymus serpyllum
Haresfoot cloverTrifolium arvense
Lesser trefoilTrifolium dubium
Rough cloverTrifolium scabrum
Sea mayweedTripleurospermum maritimum
The information presented here has been derived from the following sources:
Colombe,S.V., Diaz,A. Plant communities of Chesil Beach. Lyme Bay Environmental Study Vol12. Kerr-McGee Oil(UK) plc, 1995.
Fitzpatrick,J.M. Terrestial plant communities of the Chesil Beach and the shores of the Fleet. In: The Fleet and Chesil Beach Ladle, M. (Ed). Fleet Study Group, 1981.
Eden,S.M. Flowering plants of the shores of the Fleet. In: The Fleet Lagoon and Chesil Beach. Carr,A.P., Seaward,D.R., and Sterling,P.H. (Eds).2000.
and personal observation by Fleet volunteers.
In canyons on overhung sandstone cliff faces, eroded caves, or large protected boulders, is evidence of people who once flourished throughout the Colorado Plateau. In addition to protected dwellings of admirable masonry, pottery shards, stick figurines, chipped arrows and tools of chert, maize cobs and thatched juniper ceilings, pictographs and petroglyphs give clues to what these ancient people thought and how they lived. And yet, it is hard for me to imagine their world.
Survival depended upon their intimacy with their surroundings. We carry what we need for a few days or a week into these canyons, but living off the land year-round is another matter. The climate was a bit different then, a little wetter. So that makes agriculture a little easier to imagine. But how did they communicate without cell phones and facebook?
Rock art, of course! Will we ever be able to interpret their meanings? What were these ancient people, termed Archaic Culture by anthropologists, imagining when they drew these other-worldly figures? And how did they have the time? Did they represent their spiritual world, or costumed dancers? Were they menacing or comforting or protective?
These beautiful Barrier Canyon style pictographs in Sego Canyon are easily accessible, but hard to interpet. So-called because the type specimens of this pictograph style are found in Barrier Canyon in a remote part of Canyonlands N.P., the anthropomorphic figures are elongated, usually without appendages, often have large bug eyes, and may be decorated with necklaces, or wear earbobs, horns or antennae. They may be accompanied by snakes, or tiny birds or animals sitting on their shoulders. Painted, with a red clay slip and with some delicate brushwork, you might not guess these panels have lasted over 2000 and up to 8000 years. This extensive panel sits about 10 feet up the cliff and the largest figures are 6 to 7 feet tall. These remarkable detailed figures are some of the oldest art found throughout the southwestern cultures. What do you imagine their world to be?
This year I made it to Brickworld Chicago, my first lego convention ever. Among many many awesome things, I won Best Mecha!
Taken at the same spot along US 385 as Part 4 of this set, but this time we're facing north-northwestward.
In this direction the steeply dipping shelf of white, highly resistant Caballos Novaculite seems to have been caught in the act of slowly turning into flatirons. Note the gap, formed by the development of a gully, a little right of center. It has already detached the aboveground part of one section of the shelf.
While the ridges here are upheld by tough chert strata of the Devonian Caballos Novaculite and Ordovician Maravillas Formation, the foreground is underlain by softer shales and sandstones of the Mississippian-to-Pennsylvanian Tesnus Formation. It in turn is overlain by a blanket of much younger Pleistocene alluvium.
And on the surface is an excellent example of desert pavement, the soil's shinglelike covering of flattened rocks.
Isn't it remarkable how much there is to see and learn from one photo? And I'm sure I've just scratched the surface here. But I'd rather spend my time meditating on a relatively nondescript place like this rather than gaze at prettified eye-candy produced by "nature photographers" who don't even try to understand or identify what they're showing.
We can't all be geologists or botanists or naturalists. But at least we can provide a little locator information—and even use our own photos for a little bit of self-education. Picture that!
To see the other photos and descriptions in this series, visit my Exploring Brewster County album.
Chert o Xert hace unos años se vendió la parte alta del mismo para irse a vivir a la parte baja, más moderna, con calles más anchas y cómodas. Los propietarios las vendían los domingos en la puerta de sus casas a precios irrisorios. Se vendió casi todo el pueblo a artistas, cantantes y gente alternativa. Ésta la compramos nosotros y por extrañas circunstancias la tuvimos que vender.
Rodeo Beach, located in the Fort Cronkhite area of the Marin Headlands, is one of the most special places in the Golden Gate National Recreation Area with access to multiple trails, fantastic views, a dog-friendly beach, fascinating geology, and an interesting history. As a pocket beach, Rodeo Beach sands do not migrate up or down the coast. Instead, they are carried a short distance offshore in winter, tumble about in the surf, and then return to replenish the beach in the spring and summer. Thus, the sands of Rodeo Beach are native to the Marin Headlands and reflect the Franciscan geology of the closest hills and cliffs. This earthcache focuses on the abundant radiolarian chert and rare carnelian pebbles.
Devon Farm with Land Rover, East Devon, England.
A typical chert stone Devon farmhouse which I would guess was built towards the end of the eighteenth century. The Land Rover is a 1958 Series II model.
Canon EOS 600D + Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS lens, miniature mode applied.
Bloodstone is a chert-like rock that is composed of cryptocrystalline quartz. It consists of a mix of deep green and deep red quartz. By itself, deep green cryptocrystalline quartz is called "plasma", and the deep red variety is called "jasper". Bloodstone, or "heliotrope", is plasma with spots or streaks or patches of jasper.
I have never in my life seen a bloodstone sample with provenance information. Surprisingly, there is little to no technical geologic literature on bloodstone - at least, none that is available and out in the open.
This specimen has zero information about its locality and geologic context. Many claim that most bloodstone comes from India. If this sample is Indian in origin, it is possibly derived from a fracture fill in Deccan Traps basalt lava flows (= Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary times), and possibly from the Kathiawar Peninsula in western India.
Bloodstone is also supposedly known from California and Italy.
This picture was taken 2 days before leaving for Brickworld. That was a stressful grind designing the right leg, which was the hard one that didn't connect to anything at a convenient angle (asymmetrical pose with something this heavy usually means asymmetrical structure, so I couldn't just copy the left leg). I also had to whip up the rocks after this, then take it all apart and wrap in bubble wrap. I still don't know how I got that done in time.
Aztalan State Park is a Wisconsin state park in the Town of Aztalan, Jefferson County, at latitude N 43° 4′ and longitude W 88° 52′. Established in 1952, it was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1964 and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1966. The park covers 172 acres (0.7 km² or 70 ha) along the Crawfish River.
Approximate areas of Mississippian and related cultures. Aztalan is in the Oneota region of the map.
Aztalan is the site of an ancient Mississippian culture settlement that flourished during the 10th to 13th centuries. The indigenous people constructed massive earthwork mounds for religious and political purposes. They were part of a widespread culture with important settlements throughout the Mississippi River valley and its tributaries. Their trading network extended from the Great Lakes to the Gulf Coast, and into the southeast of the present-day United States.
Pre-history (900–1300)
Aztalan was first settled around 900 by a Native American culture known as the Middle Mississippian Tradition. The chief center of a Middle Mississippian settlement is at Cahokia, in present-day Illinois, a city that at its peak had 20,000–30,000 people. This was not surpassed by Europeans in North America until after 1800. These settlements are characterized by the construction of mounds, stockades, and houses, by decorated Mississippian culture pottery and agricultural practices. There are also elements of the Woodland culture found there.
The residents had long-distance trading relationships with other settlements, linked by their use of the rivers for transportation. For example, items found at the settlement include copper from Michigan's Upper Peninsula, shells from the coast of the Gulf of Mexico, and stone such as Mill Creek chert from other areas of the Midwest.
Sometime between 1200 and 1300, the Aztalan settlement was abandoned. Archeologists and historians surmise they may have outgrown environmental resources, or encountered more warfare from other cultures, but do not know for sure. The Little Ice Age occurred soon after 1300 and may have contributed to farming difficulties, putting too much stress on the local chiefdoms.[3]
Life in Aztalan
Most of the residents lived in circular or rectangular houses which they built between the river and the eastern secondary wall. The placement of the structures suggests that the layout was planned. The dwellings were built around a central ceremonial plaza likely used for rituals and public gatherings, as has been found at similar locations. Posts for the house frames were placed either in individual holes, or in a trench dug slightly narrower than the posts. The walls were completed with wattle and daub, a plaster mixture of grass and clay. The roof was covered with bark or thatch. The doorway usually faced south to keep out the winter's north winds. Inside, a single family slept on pole-frame beds, covered with tamarack boughs, deer skins, and furs. Sometimes a fire was kept in the middle of the house and a hole in the roof let out the smoke. Storage pits dug in the earthen floor of the house held foods such as corn, nuts, and seeds in woven bags. Perishable foods like meat were most likely stored outside prior to cooking. Refuse pits for garbage and community storage pits were located outside.[4]
The site was well chosen to provide a variety of food sources, and other resources. The staple of the diet was corn or maize, and other plants were also gathered as food, such as acorns, hickory nuts, and berries. Tobacco was grown at this time for sacred rituals, as tobacco seeds have been found at this site. The main source of meat was deer, especially in the winter. The people also caught and ate beaver, elk, fox, muskrats, and raccoons. They hunted birds and turtles, collected mussels, and caught fish in the Crawfish River directly next to the site. To help with fishing, the people set up rock barriers called fish weirs at key points, one of which is visible when the river is low. They caught catfish, bass, suckers, buffalo fish, pike, drum fish, and gar. They disposed of the thousands of shells from consumed mussels in middens. These have layers of shells several feet thick.[citation needed]
The people living here gathered food and resources for tools and building. Other materials were obtained through trade.[5] They hunted small game and deer and fished the rivers.[5] Trees nearby provided wood for posts for house walls and stockades, bows and arrow shafts, and firewood. Smaller tree branches and grass were used for bedding and roofs. Shells were used to make jewelry, beads, spoons, and digging tools. The people dug river clay which was used to fashion fired pottery. Traded items, used for ornamental or ceremonial purposes, were an attribute of status because of their rarity.[5]
Largest platform mound viewed from the south and part of a stockade
Replica of a house built over 1000 years ago at Aztalan from an exhibit in the Wisconsin Historical Museum
Interior of Aztalan house in museum exhibit
Physical features
Reconstructed stockade behind the northwestern mound
The most obvious features of Aztalan are its pyramid-shaped, flat-topped platform mounds and the stockades, believed to have served both ceremonial and defensive functions.
Mounds
Three platform mounds remain on the site. The largest is the one in the southwest corner of the stockade; one almost as large is located in the northwest corner. The smallest of the three is along the east side of the settlement, near the Crawfish River (labeled "West Branch of Rock River" on the plates). The hill in the southeast corner is a natural gravel knoll, not built by the inhabitants.[6]
The largest mound was built in three stages, with a set of steps leading to the top, where a structure was built over the entire flat top. The mound was covered with a clay cap, probably to enhance its appearance. Corn was stored in pits inside the structure. Scholars have several theories about why the corn was kept there, and the overall purpose of the structure. It may have been the storage facility for the entire village or storage for food just for the top village officials; it may have been used for ceremonies and rituals; or it could have been a house for the village officials. This topmost structure was rebuilt each time a larger stage of the mound was built on top of the old.
The northwestern mound, used for formal burial, was also built in three stages.[6] A special structure, approximately 4 metres (13 ft) by 2 metres (6.6 ft), with its long axis towards the northeast/southwest, was built on the west side of the mound. Its doorway was in its southwest corner, and the structure was covered with a mixture of clay, willow branches, and grass. The floor was covered with a mat of what may have been cattails. The bodies of ten people were placed side by side on this, with their heads toward the doorway. The bones of another person were bundled together with cord and placed near them. Once this construction was complete, and the bodies were inside, the building was burned.
The eastern mound had a large open-walled structure, about 12 metres (39 ft) by 27 metres (89 ft), built on top of it, with firepits lined with white sand inside. The function of this mound and structure remain unclear.
Additionally, to the northwest of the stockaded area, a row of round mounds extends northward. When archaeologists dug in these mounds during the 1920s, they did not find the burial sites they had expected. Instead, each mound had a large post set in a pit in its center, surrounded by gravel and soil, with the pit capped with clay and gravel to hold the post steady. These mounds have been termed "marker mounds" because they may have been used to mark the site for travelers, but this is not certain. They may also have been used for announcements, message relays, or for calculations of astronomical phenomena, as has been found at other Mississippian sites, such as Cahokia.
Stockade
Reconstructed stockade near the Crawfish River
The settlement was surrounded on the north, west, and south sides by a palisade, a wall of logs set vertically into the ground. Narrow holes were dug into the ground, then the posts were lifted into position and set into the holes. The stockade was finished by people weaving flexible willow branches through the posts, and plastering the whole with a mixture of clay and grass to fill in the gaps, a technique similar to wattle and daub.
At some point, a smaller stockade was built within the outer one to delimit the dwelling areas. Archeologists have not been able to determine whether both stockades existed simultaneously, for a layered defense, or one was built after the other fell into disuse.
In 1850, Increase A. Lapham, an author, scientist, and naturalist, surveyed the site on behalf of the Smithsonian Institution. He described the outer stockade as being "631 feet (192 m) long at the north end, 1,149 feet (350 m) long on the west side and 700 feet (210 m) on the south side; making a total length of wall of 2,750 feet (840 m). The ridge or wall is about 22 feet (6.7 m), and from 1 foot (0.30 m) to 5 feet (1.5 m)) in height".[7] It had at least 33 square bastions at regular intervals along its length, similar in form and placement to some European fortifications, in order to allow defensive warriors to cover that area by shooting arrows. In addition, others were built along the secondary walls. Rather than having a gate to protect the entrance, the builders constructed the entrance so that it was camouflaged from direct view and blended in with the wall on either side.
During the time Aztalan was inhabited, two sets of outer stockades were built. The posts of the first one eventually rotted, and the second one burned and was never rebuilt. It is not clear whether the purpose of the stockade was to keep out invaders, or if the occupants built it for another reason.
Modern discovery (1835–1919)
A young man named Timothy Johnson discovered the ruins of the ancient settlement in December 1835. In January 1836, N. F. Hyer conducted the first rough survey of the site, and published his discovery in the Milwaukie Advertiser of January 1837. According to Lapham:
The name Aztalan was given to this place by Mr. Hyer, because, according to Humboldt, the Aztecs, or ancient inhabitants of Mexico, had a tradition that their ancestors came from a country at the north, which they called Aztalan; and the possibility that these may have been remains of their occupancy, suggested the idea of restoring the name. It is made up of two Mexican words, atl, water, and an, near; and the country was probably so named from its proximity to large bodies of water. Hence the natural inference that the country about these great lakes was the ancient residence of the Aztecs.[8]
Hyer wrote, "We are determined to preserve these ruins from being ruined." However, in 1838, President Martin Van Buren refused a request by Massachusetts statesman Edward Everett to withdraw the site from public sale, and it was sold for $22. In the following years, the surface was plowed, the mounds were leveled for easier farming, pottery shards and "Aztalan brick" were hauled away by the wagonload to fill in potholes in township roads, and souvenir hunters took numerous artifacts.
In 1850, Lapham urged the preservation of the stockade. At the time, the stockade was still standing, though not in the condition it had once been.
State park foundation and reconstruction (1919–present)
Historic marker for Aztalan State Park
In 1919, archeological excavations began at Aztalan under the direction of Dr. S. A. Barrett. In 1920, the Landmarks Committee of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin under Publius V. Lawson started a new effort to save what remained of Aztalan, supported by the Friends of Our Native Landscape and the Wisconsin Archeological Society. They made their first purchase of some of the land in 1921, three acres (12,000 m²) west of the stockade and containing eight conical mounds, and presented it to the Wisconsin Archeological Society.
Work for preservation continued. In 1936, the state's archeological and historical societies petitioned the federal government for funds to reconstruct the stockade, without success, although during the Great Depression it funded archeological work and preservation at numerous ancient sites around the country. In 1941, the newly founded Lake Mills-Aztalan Historical Society began an energetic campaign to preserve the stockade area.
In 1945, the Wisconsin State Assembly passed a bill directing the State Planning Board to study the possibility of establishing a state park at Aztalan. In 1947, the Wisconsin State Legislature passed a resolution requesting the State Conservation Commission to purchase Aztalan. 120 acres (490,000 m²) were purchased to this end in 1948, and the Wisconsin Archeological Society and the Lake Mills-Aztalan Historical Society donated their holdings. Aztalan opened to the public as Aztalan State Park in 1952.
Aztalan was designated a registered National Historic Landmark in 1964 and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1966. In 1968, the state reconstructed portions of the stockade wall by placing new posts in the original holes. A section of this was also covered with the wattle and daub, but this has since worn away or been removed.
-Natural History Story-
Absolute Chaos in Thunder Bay area 400 miles (660 km) away from an asteroid impact crater in Sudbury 1.85 billion years ago. This 2m x 3m section of impact debrisite outcrop consists of a transported cobble of rusty iron formation, transported boulders of grey sedimentary rock and white dolomite from the local Proterozoic paleo-surface, all within a fine-grained dark-coloured matrix of microtektite ejecta.
www.lakesuperiorgeology.org/publications/proceedings.html
and find ILSG's 2012 annual publication, see papers 1 and 5 for Thunder Bay area sites
impact.ese.ic.ac.uk/ImpactEffects/
Earth Impact Effects Program is a profoundly disturbing university application that calculates the physical effects from any rock from space large enough to form a crater on Earth. One of the largest known space rocks of all time was the 1.85 Ga Sudbury impactor. It laid a stupefying "whupping" that was at least a continent wide upon ancient Earth.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudbury_Basin
Here's a link to my photo of the more well-known "dinosaur killer" Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary ash layer in Alberta.
Sunset on Rodeo Beach, located in the Fort Cronkhite area of the Marin Headlands, one of the most special places in the Golden Gate National Recreation Area with access to multiple trails, fantastic views, a dog-friendly beach, fascinating geology, and an interesting history. As a pocket beach, Rodeo Beach sands do not migrate up or down the coast. Instead, they are carried a short distance offshore in winter, tumble about in the surf, and then return to replenish the beach in the spring and summer. Thus, the sands of Rodeo Beach are native to the Marin Headlands and reflect the Franciscan geology of the closest hills and cliffs. This earthcache focuses on the abundant radiolarian chert and rare carnelian pebbles.
Smoo Cave is a large combined sea cave and freshwater cave in Durness in Sutherland, Highland, Scotland. The cave name is thought to originate from the Norse 'smjugg' or 'smuga', meaning a hole or hiding-place.
Smoo Cave was formed within Early Ordovician dolomites of the Durness Group (also known as the Durness Limestone). The cave has formed along the boundary between the light grey Sangomore Formation and the dark grey, mottled Sailmhor Formation (sometimes called Leopard Rock), both of which form part of the Durness Group succession. These horizons close to the formation boundary are characterised by large and abundant chert nodules which can be found all along the inner stream chamber where they have been left behind after dissolution of the surrounding dolomite.
The cave was formed along two geological lines of weakness by a combination of erosion from the sea and an inland underground stream which has formed the innermost chambers. Upstream of the Allt Smoo which runs into the cave, impermeable quartzites have been faulted against the Durness Limestone, causing the stream to sink down into the carbonate rock soon after it has crossed the contact between the two different rock types.
The cave is unique within the UK in that the first chamber has been formed by the action of the sea, whereas the inner chambers are freshwater passages, formed from rainwater dissolving the carbonate dolomites. Partway through the cave the waters of Allt Smoo also drop in as a 20 metres (66 ft) high waterfall. This is mainly due to the nearby dolomite–quartzite geological boundary where the Allt Smoo stream crosses the impermeable quartzites and sinks on meeting the permeable dolomites.
The cave can be thought of as two caves formed by different mechanisms that have joined together over time. The cave is composed of three main sections: a large sea cave entrance chamber, a waterfall chamber and a short freshwater passage which leads to a terminal sump chamber with some flowstone formations at the rear.
The cave entrance and main chamber have been considerably enlarged by sea action to approximately 40 metres (130 ft) wide and 15 metres (49 ft) high, the largest sea cave entrance in Britain. The entrance is located at the end of a 600 metres (660 yd) long tidal gorge (Geodha Smoo) which was once part of the cave, now collapsed. Several remnant pillars can be seen along the eastern side of the Geodh along with a large section of the previous roof which has been partly buried by the grassy slope (normally covered by rocks spelling out the names of visitors to the cave). The sea rarely enters the sea cave nowadays (only during spring tides) as the area has undergone isostatic uplift.
The present-day cave is 83 metres (272 ft) long up to the terminal sump at the rear of the third chamber/passage. The cave travels further, however, as an active stream of notable size resurges here at all times. Previous dye-testing has linked an underwater passage to an initial sink point in the Allt Smoo stream about 100 metres (330 ft) upstream from the main waterfall, implying that the cave system is at least twice as long as once thought.
Cave divers from the Grampian Speleological Group have dived this sump for a distance of about 40 metres (130 ft), although large volumes of silt and peat in the water have prevented further exploration. It is worth noting that the main waterfall is often dry and will only become active once this upstream sink overflows.
The Highlands is a historical region of Scotland. Culturally, the Highlands and the Lowlands diverged from the Late Middle Ages into the modern period, when Lowland Scots language replaced Scottish Gaelic throughout most of the Lowlands. The term is also used for the area north and west of the Highland Boundary Fault, although the exact boundaries are not clearly defined, particularly to the east. The Great Glen divides the Grampian Mountains to the southeast from the Northwest Highlands. The Scottish Gaelic name of A' Ghàidhealtachd literally means "the place of the Gaels" and traditionally, from a Gaelic-speaking point of view, includes both the Western Isles and the Highlands.
The area is very sparsely populated, with many mountain ranges dominating the region, and includes the highest mountain in the British Isles, Ben Nevis. During the 18th and early 19th centuries the population of the Highlands rose to around 300,000, but from c. 1841 and for the next 160 years, the natural increase in population was exceeded by emigration (mostly to Canada, the United States, Australia and New Zealand, and migration to the industrial cities of Scotland and England.) and passim The area is now one of the most sparsely populated in Europe. At 9.1/km2 (24/sq mi) in 2012, the population density in the Highlands and Islands is less than one seventh of Scotland's as a whole.
The Highland Council is the administrative body for much of the Highlands, with its administrative centre at Inverness. However, the Highlands also includes parts of the council areas of Aberdeenshire, Angus, Argyll and Bute, Moray, North Ayrshire, Perth and Kinross, Stirling and West Dunbartonshire.
The Scottish Highlands is the only area in the British Isles to have the taiga biome as it features concentrated populations of Scots pine forest: see Caledonian Forest. It is the most mountainous part of the United Kingdom.
Between the 15th century and the mid-20th century, the area differed from most of the Lowlands in terms of language. In Scottish Gaelic, the region is known as the Gàidhealtachd, because it was traditionally the Gaelic-speaking part of Scotland, although the language is now largely confined to The Hebrides. The terms are sometimes used interchangeably but have different meanings in their respective languages. Scottish English (in its Highland form) is the predominant language of the area today, though Highland English has been influenced by Gaelic speech to a significant extent. Historically, the "Highland line" distinguished the two Scottish cultures. While the Highland line broadly followed the geography of the Grampians in the south, it continued in the north, cutting off the north-eastern areas, that is Eastern Caithness, Orkney and Shetland, from the more Gaelic Highlands and Hebrides.
Historically, the major social unit of the Highlands was the clan. Scottish kings, particularly James VI, saw clans as a challenge to their authority; the Highlands was seen by many as a lawless region. The Scots of the Lowlands viewed the Highlanders as backward and more "Irish". The Highlands were seen as the overspill of Gaelic Ireland. They made this distinction by separating Germanic "Scots" English and the Gaelic by renaming it "Erse" a play on Eire. Following the Union of the Crowns, James VI had the military strength to back up any attempts to impose some control. The result was, in 1609, the Statutes of Iona which started the process of integrating clan leaders into Scottish society. The gradual changes continued into the 19th century, as clan chiefs thought of themselves less as patriarchal leaders of their people and more as commercial landlords. The first effect on the clansmen who were their tenants was the change to rents being payable in money rather than in kind. Later, rents were increased as Highland landowners sought to increase their income. This was followed, mostly in the period 1760–1850, by agricultural improvement that often (particularly in the Western Highlands) involved clearance of the population to make way for large scale sheep farms. Displaced tenants were set up in crofting communities in the process. The crofts were intended not to provide all the needs of their occupiers; they were expected to work in other industries such as kelping and fishing. Crofters came to rely substantially on seasonal migrant work, particularly in the Lowlands. This gave impetus to the learning of English, which was seen by many rural Gaelic speakers to be the essential "language of work".
Older historiography attributes the collapse of the clan system to the aftermath of the Jacobite risings. This is now thought less influential by historians. Following the Jacobite rising of 1745 the British government enacted a series of laws to try to suppress the clan system, including bans on the bearing of arms and the wearing of tartan, and limitations on the activities of the Scottish Episcopal Church. Most of this legislation was repealed by the end of the 18th century as the Jacobite threat subsided. There was soon a rehabilitation of Highland culture. Tartan was adopted for Highland regiments in the British Army, which poor Highlanders joined in large numbers in the era of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars (1790–1815). Tartan had largely been abandoned by the ordinary people of the region, but in the 1820s, tartan and the kilt were adopted by members of the social elite, not just in Scotland, but across Europe. The international craze for tartan, and for idealising a romanticised Highlands, was set off by the Ossian cycle, and further popularised by the works of Walter Scott. His "staging" of the visit of King George IV to Scotland in 1822 and the king's wearing of tartan resulted in a massive upsurge in demand for kilts and tartans that could not be met by the Scottish woollen industry. Individual clan tartans were largely designated in this period and they became a major symbol of Scottish identity. This "Highlandism", by which all of Scotland was identified with the culture of the Highlands, was cemented by Queen Victoria's interest in the country, her adoption of Balmoral as a major royal retreat, and her interest in "tartenry".
Recurrent famine affected the Highlands for much of its history, with significant instances as late as 1817 in the Eastern Highlands and the early 1850s in the West. Over the 18th century, the region had developed a trade of black cattle into Lowland markets, and this was balanced by imports of meal into the area. There was a critical reliance on this trade to provide sufficient food, and it is seen as an essential prerequisite for the population growth that started in the 18th century. Most of the Highlands, particularly in the North and West was short of the arable land that was essential for the mixed, run rig based, communal farming that existed before agricultural improvement was introduced into the region.[a] Between the 1760s and the 1830s there was a substantial trade in unlicensed whisky that had been distilled in the Highlands. Lowland distillers (who were not able to avoid the heavy taxation of this product) complained that Highland whisky made up more than half the market. The development of the cattle trade is taken as evidence that the pre-improvement Highlands was not an immutable system, but did exploit the economic opportunities that came its way. The illicit whisky trade demonstrates the entrepreneurial ability of the peasant classes.
Agricultural improvement reached the Highlands mostly over the period 1760 to 1850. Agricultural advisors, factors, land surveyors and others educated in the thinking of Adam Smith were keen to put into practice the new ideas taught in Scottish universities. Highland landowners, many of whom were burdened with chronic debts, were generally receptive to the advice they offered and keen to increase the income from their land. In the East and South the resulting change was similar to that in the Lowlands, with the creation of larger farms with single tenants, enclosure of the old run rig fields, introduction of new crops (such as turnips), land drainage and, as a consequence of all this, eviction, as part of the Highland clearances, of many tenants and cottars. Some of those cleared found employment on the new, larger farms, others moved to the accessible towns of the Lowlands.
In the West and North, evicted tenants were usually given tenancies in newly created crofting communities, while their former holdings were converted into large sheep farms. Sheep farmers could pay substantially higher rents than the run rig farmers and were much less prone to falling into arrears. Each croft was limited in size so that the tenants would have to find work elsewhere. The major alternatives were fishing and the kelp industry. Landlords took control of the kelp shores, deducting the wages earned by their tenants from the rent due and retaining the large profits that could be earned at the high prices paid for the processed product during the Napoleonic wars.
When the Napoleonic wars finished in 1815, the Highland industries were affected by the return to a peacetime economy. The price of black cattle fell, nearly halving between 1810 and the 1830s. Kelp prices had peaked in 1810, but reduced from £9 a ton in 1823 to £3 13s 4d a ton in 1828. Wool prices were also badly affected. This worsened the financial problems of debt-encumbered landlords. Then, in 1846, potato blight arrived in the Highlands, wiping out the essential subsistence crop for the overcrowded crofting communities. As the famine struck, the government made clear to landlords that it was their responsibility to provide famine relief for their tenants. The result of the economic downturn had been that a large proportion of Highland estates were sold in the first half of the 19th century. T M Devine points out that in the region most affected by the potato famine, by 1846, 70 per cent of the landowners were new purchasers who had not owned Highland property before 1800. More landlords were obliged to sell due to the cost of famine relief. Those who were protected from the worst of the crisis were those with extensive rental income from sheep farms. Government loans were made available for drainage works, road building and other improvements and many crofters became temporary migrants – taking work in the Lowlands. When the potato famine ceased in 1856, this established a pattern of more extensive working away from the Highlands.
The unequal concentration of land ownership remained an emotional and controversial subject, of enormous importance to the Highland economy, and eventually became a cornerstone of liberal radicalism. The poor crofters were politically powerless, and many of them turned to religion. They embraced the popularly oriented, fervently evangelical Presbyterian revival after 1800. Most joined the breakaway "Free Church" after 1843. This evangelical movement was led by lay preachers who themselves came from the lower strata, and whose preaching was implicitly critical of the established order. The religious change energised the crofters and separated them from the landlords; it helped prepare them for their successful and violent challenge to the landlords in the 1880s through the Highland Land League. Violence erupted, starting on the Isle of Skye, when Highland landlords cleared their lands for sheep and deer parks. It was quietened when the government stepped in, passing the Crofters' Holdings (Scotland) Act, 1886 to reduce rents, guarantee fixity of tenure, and break up large estates to provide crofts for the homeless. This contrasted with the Irish Land War underway at the same time, where the Irish were intensely politicised through roots in Irish nationalism, while political dimensions were limited. In 1885 three Independent Crofter candidates were elected to Parliament, which listened to their pleas. The results included explicit security for the Scottish smallholders in the "crofting counties"; the legal right to bequeath tenancies to descendants; and the creation of a Crofting Commission. The Crofters as a political movement faded away by 1892, and the Liberal Party gained their votes.
Today, the Highlands are the largest of Scotland's whisky producing regions; the relevant area runs from Orkney to the Isle of Arran in the south and includes the northern isles and much of Inner and Outer Hebrides, Argyll, Stirlingshire, Arran, as well as sections of Perthshire and Aberdeenshire. (Other sources treat The Islands, except Islay, as a separate whisky producing region.) This massive area has over 30 distilleries, or 47 when the Islands sub-region is included in the count. According to one source, the top five are The Macallan, Glenfiddich, Aberlour, Glenfarclas and Balvenie. While Speyside is geographically within the Highlands, that region is specified as distinct in terms of whisky productions. Speyside single malt whiskies are produced by about 50 distilleries.
According to Visit Scotland, Highlands whisky is "fruity, sweet, spicy, malty". Another review states that Northern Highlands single malt is "sweet and full-bodied", the Eastern Highlands and Southern Highlands whiskies tend to be "lighter in texture" while the distilleries in the Western Highlands produce single malts with a "much peatier influence".
The Scottish Reformation achieved partial success in the Highlands. Roman Catholicism remained strong in some areas, owing to remote locations and the efforts of Franciscan missionaries from Ireland, who regularly came to celebrate Mass. There remain significant Catholic strongholds within the Highlands and Islands such as Moidart and Morar on the mainland and South Uist and Barra in the southern Outer Hebrides. The remoteness of the region and the lack of a Gaelic-speaking clergy undermined the missionary efforts of the established church. The later 18th century saw somewhat greater success, owing to the efforts of the SSPCK missionaries and to the disruption of traditional society after the Battle of Culloden in 1746. In the 19th century, the evangelical Free Churches, which were more accepting of Gaelic language and culture, grew rapidly, appealing much more strongly than did the established church.
For the most part, however, the Highlands are considered predominantly Protestant, belonging to the Church of Scotland. In contrast to the Catholic southern islands, the northern Outer Hebrides islands (Lewis, Harris and North Uist) have an exceptionally high proportion of their population belonging to the Protestant Free Church of Scotland or the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland. The Outer Hebrides have been described as the last bastion of Calvinism in Britain and the Sabbath remains widely observed. Inverness and the surrounding area has a majority Protestant population, with most locals belonging to either The Kirk or the Free Church of Scotland. The church maintains a noticeable presence within the area, with church attendance notably higher than in other parts of Scotland. Religion continues to play an important role in Highland culture, with Sabbath observance still widely practised, particularly in the Hebrides.
In traditional Scottish geography, the Highlands refers to that part of Scotland north-west of the Highland Boundary Fault, which crosses mainland Scotland in a near-straight line from Helensburgh to Stonehaven. However the flat coastal lands that occupy parts of the counties of Nairnshire, Morayshire, Banffshire and Aberdeenshire are often excluded as they do not share the distinctive geographical and cultural features of the rest of the Highlands. The north-east of Caithness, as well as Orkney and Shetland, are also often excluded from the Highlands, although the Hebrides are usually included. The Highland area, as so defined, differed from the Lowlands in language and tradition, having preserved Gaelic speech and customs centuries after the anglicisation of the latter; this led to a growing perception of a divide, with the cultural distinction between Highlander and Lowlander first noted towards the end of the 14th century. In Aberdeenshire, the boundary between the Highlands and the Lowlands is not well defined. There is a stone beside the A93 road near the village of Dinnet on Royal Deeside which states 'You are now in the Highlands', although there are areas of Highland character to the east of this point.
A much wider definition of the Highlands is that used by the Scotch whisky industry. Highland single malts are produced at distilleries north of an imaginary line between Dundee and Greenock, thus including all of Aberdeenshire and Angus.
Inverness is regarded as the Capital of the Highlands, although less so in the Highland parts of Aberdeenshire, Angus, Perthshire and Stirlingshire which look more to Aberdeen, Dundee, Perth, and Stirling as their commercial centres.
The Highland Council area, created as one of the local government regions of Scotland, has been a unitary council area since 1996. The council area excludes a large area of the southern and eastern Highlands, and the Western Isles, but includes Caithness. Highlands is sometimes used, however, as a name for the council area, as in the former Highlands and Islands Fire and Rescue Service. Northern is also used to refer to the area, as in the former Northern Constabulary. These former bodies both covered the Highland council area and the island council areas of Orkney, Shetland and the Western Isles.
Much of the Highlands area overlaps the Highlands and Islands area. An electoral region called Highlands and Islands is used in elections to the Scottish Parliament: this area includes Orkney and Shetland, as well as the Highland Council local government area, the Western Isles and most of the Argyll and Bute and Moray local government areas. Highlands and Islands has, however, different meanings in different contexts. It means Highland (the local government area), Orkney, Shetland, and the Western Isles in Highlands and Islands Fire and Rescue Service. Northern, as in Northern Constabulary, refers to the same area as that covered by the fire and rescue service.
There have been trackways from the Lowlands to the Highlands since prehistoric times. Many traverse the Mounth, a spur of mountainous land that extends from the higher inland range to the North Sea slightly north of Stonehaven. The most well-known and historically important trackways are the Causey Mounth, Elsick Mounth, Cryne Corse Mounth and Cairnamounth.
Although most of the Highlands is geographically on the British mainland, it is somewhat less accessible than the rest of Britain; thus most UK couriers categorise it separately, alongside Northern Ireland, the Isle of Man, and other offshore islands. They thus charge additional fees for delivery to the Highlands, or exclude the area entirely. While the physical remoteness from the largest population centres inevitably leads to higher transit cost, there is confusion and consternation over the scale of the fees charged and the effectiveness of their communication, and the use of the word Mainland in their justification. Since the charges are often based on postcode areas, many far less remote areas, including some which are traditionally considered part of the lowlands, are also subject to these charges. Royal Mail is the only delivery network bound by a Universal Service Obligation to charge a uniform tariff across the UK. This, however, applies only to mail items and not larger packages which are dealt with by its Parcelforce division.
The Highlands lie to the north and west of the Highland Boundary Fault, which runs from Arran to Stonehaven. This part of Scotland is largely composed of ancient rocks from the Cambrian and Precambrian periods which were uplifted during the later Caledonian Orogeny. Smaller formations of Lewisian gneiss in the northwest are up to 3 billion years old. The overlying rocks of the Torridon Sandstone form mountains in the Torridon Hills such as Liathach and Beinn Eighe in Wester Ross.
These foundations are interspersed with many igneous intrusions of a more recent age, the remnants of which have formed mountain massifs such as the Cairngorms and the Cuillin of Skye. A significant exception to the above are the fossil-bearing beds of Old Red Sandstone found principally along the Moray Firth coast and partially down the Highland Boundary Fault. The Jurassic beds found in isolated locations on Skye and Applecross reflect the complex underlying geology. They are the original source of much North Sea oil. The Great Glen is formed along a transform fault which divides the Grampian Mountains to the southeast from the Northwest Highlands.
The entire region was covered by ice sheets during the Pleistocene ice ages, save perhaps for a few nunataks. The complex geomorphology includes incised valleys and lochs carved by the action of mountain streams and ice, and a topography of irregularly distributed mountains whose summits have similar heights above sea-level, but whose bases depend upon the amount of denudation to which the plateau has been subjected in various places.
Climate
The region is much warmer than other areas at similar latitudes (such as Kamchatka in Russia, or Labrador in Canada) because of the Gulf Stream making it cool, damp and temperate. The Köppen climate classification is "Cfb" at low altitudes, then becoming "Cfc", "Dfc" and "ET" at higher altitudes.
Places of interest
An Teallach
Aonach Mòr (Nevis Range ski centre)
Arrochar Alps
Balmoral Castle
Balquhidder
Battlefield of Culloden
Beinn Alligin
Beinn Eighe
Ben Cruachan hydro-electric power station
Ben Lomond
Ben Macdui (second highest mountain in Scotland and UK)
Ben Nevis (highest mountain in Scotland and UK)
Cairngorms National Park
Cairngorm Ski centre near Aviemore
Cairngorm Mountains
Caledonian Canal
Cape Wrath
Carrick Castle
Castle Stalker
Castle Tioram
Chanonry Point
Conic Hill
Culloden Moor
Dunadd
Duart Castle
Durness
Eilean Donan
Fingal's Cave (Staffa)
Fort George
Glen Coe
Glen Etive
Glen Kinglas
Glen Lyon
Glen Orchy
Glenshee Ski Centre
Glen Shiel
Glen Spean
Glenfinnan (and its railway station and viaduct)
Grampian Mountains
Hebrides
Highland Folk Museum – The first open-air museum in the UK.
Highland Wildlife Park
Inveraray Castle
Inveraray Jail
Inverness Castle
Inverewe Garden
Iona Abbey
Isle of Staffa
Kilchurn Castle
Kilmartin Glen
Liathach
Lecht Ski Centre
Loch Alsh
Loch Ard
Loch Awe
Loch Assynt
Loch Earn
Loch Etive
Loch Fyne
Loch Goil
Loch Katrine
Loch Leven
Loch Linnhe
Loch Lochy
Loch Lomond
Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park
Loch Lubnaig
Loch Maree
Loch Morar
Loch Morlich
Loch Ness
Loch Nevis
Loch Rannoch
Loch Tay
Lochranza
Luss
Meall a' Bhuiridh (Glencoe Ski Centre)
Scottish Sea Life Sanctuary at Loch Creran
Rannoch Moor
Red Cuillin
Rest and Be Thankful stretch of A83
River Carron, Wester Ross
River Spey
River Tay
Ross and Cromarty
Smoo Cave
Stob Coire a' Chàirn
Stac Polly
Strathspey Railway
Sutherland
Tor Castle
Torridon Hills
Urquhart Castle
West Highland Line (scenic railway)
West Highland Way (Long-distance footpath)
Wester Ross
Smoo Cave is a large combined sea cave and freshwater cave in Durness in Sutherland, Highland, Scotland. The cave name is thought to originate from the Norse 'smjugg' or 'smuga', meaning a hole or hiding-place.
Smoo Cave was formed within Early Ordovician dolomites of the Durness Group (also known as the Durness Limestone). The cave has formed along the boundary between the light grey Sangomore Formation and the dark grey, mottled Sailmhor Formation (sometimes called Leopard Rock), both of which form part of the Durness Group succession. These horizons close to the formation boundary are characterised by large and abundant chert nodules which can be found all along the inner stream chamber where they have been left behind after dissolution of the surrounding dolomite.
The cave was formed along two geological lines of weakness by a combination of erosion from the sea and an inland underground stream which has formed the innermost chambers. Upstream of the Allt Smoo which runs into the cave, impermeable quartzites have been faulted against the Durness Limestone, causing the stream to sink down into the carbonate rock soon after it has crossed the contact between the two different rock types.
The cave is unique within the UK in that the first chamber has been formed by the action of the sea, whereas the inner chambers are freshwater passages, formed from rainwater dissolving the carbonate dolomites. Partway through the cave the waters of Allt Smoo also drop in as a 20 metres (66 ft) high waterfall. This is mainly due to the nearby dolomite–quartzite geological boundary where the Allt Smoo stream crosses the impermeable quartzites and sinks on meeting the permeable dolomites.
The cave can be thought of as two caves formed by different mechanisms that have joined together over time. The cave is composed of three main sections: a large sea cave entrance chamber, a waterfall chamber and a short freshwater passage which leads to a terminal sump chamber with some flowstone formations at the rear.
The cave entrance and main chamber have been considerably enlarged by sea action to approximately 40 metres (130 ft) wide and 15 metres (49 ft) high, the largest sea cave entrance in Britain. The entrance is located at the end of a 600 metres (660 yd) long tidal gorge (Geodha Smoo) which was once part of the cave, now collapsed. Several remnant pillars can be seen along the eastern side of the Geodh along with a large section of the previous roof which has been partly buried by the grassy slope (normally covered by rocks spelling out the names of visitors to the cave). The sea rarely enters the sea cave nowadays (only during spring tides) as the area has undergone isostatic uplift.
The present-day cave is 83 metres (272 ft) long up to the terminal sump at the rear of the third chamber/passage. The cave travels further, however, as an active stream of notable size resurges here at all times. Previous dye-testing has linked an underwater passage to an initial sink point in the Allt Smoo stream about 100 metres (330 ft) upstream from the main waterfall, implying that the cave system is at least twice as long as once thought.
Cave divers from the Grampian Speleological Group have dived this sump for a distance of about 40 metres (130 ft), although large volumes of silt and peat in the water have prevented further exploration. It is worth noting that the main waterfall is often dry and will only become active once this upstream sink overflows.
The Highlands is a historical region of Scotland. Culturally, the Highlands and the Lowlands diverged from the Late Middle Ages into the modern period, when Lowland Scots language replaced Scottish Gaelic throughout most of the Lowlands. The term is also used for the area north and west of the Highland Boundary Fault, although the exact boundaries are not clearly defined, particularly to the east. The Great Glen divides the Grampian Mountains to the southeast from the Northwest Highlands. The Scottish Gaelic name of A' Ghàidhealtachd literally means "the place of the Gaels" and traditionally, from a Gaelic-speaking point of view, includes both the Western Isles and the Highlands.
The area is very sparsely populated, with many mountain ranges dominating the region, and includes the highest mountain in the British Isles, Ben Nevis. During the 18th and early 19th centuries the population of the Highlands rose to around 300,000, but from c. 1841 and for the next 160 years, the natural increase in population was exceeded by emigration (mostly to Canada, the United States, Australia and New Zealand, and migration to the industrial cities of Scotland and England.) and passim The area is now one of the most sparsely populated in Europe. At 9.1/km2 (24/sq mi) in 2012, the population density in the Highlands and Islands is less than one seventh of Scotland's as a whole.
The Highland Council is the administrative body for much of the Highlands, with its administrative centre at Inverness. However, the Highlands also includes parts of the council areas of Aberdeenshire, Angus, Argyll and Bute, Moray, North Ayrshire, Perth and Kinross, Stirling and West Dunbartonshire.
The Scottish Highlands is the only area in the British Isles to have the taiga biome as it features concentrated populations of Scots pine forest: see Caledonian Forest. It is the most mountainous part of the United Kingdom.
Between the 15th century and the mid-20th century, the area differed from most of the Lowlands in terms of language. In Scottish Gaelic, the region is known as the Gàidhealtachd, because it was traditionally the Gaelic-speaking part of Scotland, although the language is now largely confined to The Hebrides. The terms are sometimes used interchangeably but have different meanings in their respective languages. Scottish English (in its Highland form) is the predominant language of the area today, though Highland English has been influenced by Gaelic speech to a significant extent. Historically, the "Highland line" distinguished the two Scottish cultures. While the Highland line broadly followed the geography of the Grampians in the south, it continued in the north, cutting off the north-eastern areas, that is Eastern Caithness, Orkney and Shetland, from the more Gaelic Highlands and Hebrides.
Historically, the major social unit of the Highlands was the clan. Scottish kings, particularly James VI, saw clans as a challenge to their authority; the Highlands was seen by many as a lawless region. The Scots of the Lowlands viewed the Highlanders as backward and more "Irish". The Highlands were seen as the overspill of Gaelic Ireland. They made this distinction by separating Germanic "Scots" English and the Gaelic by renaming it "Erse" a play on Eire. Following the Union of the Crowns, James VI had the military strength to back up any attempts to impose some control. The result was, in 1609, the Statutes of Iona which started the process of integrating clan leaders into Scottish society. The gradual changes continued into the 19th century, as clan chiefs thought of themselves less as patriarchal leaders of their people and more as commercial landlords. The first effect on the clansmen who were their tenants was the change to rents being payable in money rather than in kind. Later, rents were increased as Highland landowners sought to increase their income. This was followed, mostly in the period 1760–1850, by agricultural improvement that often (particularly in the Western Highlands) involved clearance of the population to make way for large scale sheep farms. Displaced tenants were set up in crofting communities in the process. The crofts were intended not to provide all the needs of their occupiers; they were expected to work in other industries such as kelping and fishing. Crofters came to rely substantially on seasonal migrant work, particularly in the Lowlands. This gave impetus to the learning of English, which was seen by many rural Gaelic speakers to be the essential "language of work".
Older historiography attributes the collapse of the clan system to the aftermath of the Jacobite risings. This is now thought less influential by historians. Following the Jacobite rising of 1745 the British government enacted a series of laws to try to suppress the clan system, including bans on the bearing of arms and the wearing of tartan, and limitations on the activities of the Scottish Episcopal Church. Most of this legislation was repealed by the end of the 18th century as the Jacobite threat subsided. There was soon a rehabilitation of Highland culture. Tartan was adopted for Highland regiments in the British Army, which poor Highlanders joined in large numbers in the era of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars (1790–1815). Tartan had largely been abandoned by the ordinary people of the region, but in the 1820s, tartan and the kilt were adopted by members of the social elite, not just in Scotland, but across Europe. The international craze for tartan, and for idealising a romanticised Highlands, was set off by the Ossian cycle, and further popularised by the works of Walter Scott. His "staging" of the visit of King George IV to Scotland in 1822 and the king's wearing of tartan resulted in a massive upsurge in demand for kilts and tartans that could not be met by the Scottish woollen industry. Individual clan tartans were largely designated in this period and they became a major symbol of Scottish identity. This "Highlandism", by which all of Scotland was identified with the culture of the Highlands, was cemented by Queen Victoria's interest in the country, her adoption of Balmoral as a major royal retreat, and her interest in "tartenry".
Recurrent famine affected the Highlands for much of its history, with significant instances as late as 1817 in the Eastern Highlands and the early 1850s in the West. Over the 18th century, the region had developed a trade of black cattle into Lowland markets, and this was balanced by imports of meal into the area. There was a critical reliance on this trade to provide sufficient food, and it is seen as an essential prerequisite for the population growth that started in the 18th century. Most of the Highlands, particularly in the North and West was short of the arable land that was essential for the mixed, run rig based, communal farming that existed before agricultural improvement was introduced into the region.[a] Between the 1760s and the 1830s there was a substantial trade in unlicensed whisky that had been distilled in the Highlands. Lowland distillers (who were not able to avoid the heavy taxation of this product) complained that Highland whisky made up more than half the market. The development of the cattle trade is taken as evidence that the pre-improvement Highlands was not an immutable system, but did exploit the economic opportunities that came its way. The illicit whisky trade demonstrates the entrepreneurial ability of the peasant classes.
Agricultural improvement reached the Highlands mostly over the period 1760 to 1850. Agricultural advisors, factors, land surveyors and others educated in the thinking of Adam Smith were keen to put into practice the new ideas taught in Scottish universities. Highland landowners, many of whom were burdened with chronic debts, were generally receptive to the advice they offered and keen to increase the income from their land. In the East and South the resulting change was similar to that in the Lowlands, with the creation of larger farms with single tenants, enclosure of the old run rig fields, introduction of new crops (such as turnips), land drainage and, as a consequence of all this, eviction, as part of the Highland clearances, of many tenants and cottars. Some of those cleared found employment on the new, larger farms, others moved to the accessible towns of the Lowlands.
In the West and North, evicted tenants were usually given tenancies in newly created crofting communities, while their former holdings were converted into large sheep farms. Sheep farmers could pay substantially higher rents than the run rig farmers and were much less prone to falling into arrears. Each croft was limited in size so that the tenants would have to find work elsewhere. The major alternatives were fishing and the kelp industry. Landlords took control of the kelp shores, deducting the wages earned by their tenants from the rent due and retaining the large profits that could be earned at the high prices paid for the processed product during the Napoleonic wars.
When the Napoleonic wars finished in 1815, the Highland industries were affected by the return to a peacetime economy. The price of black cattle fell, nearly halving between 1810 and the 1830s. Kelp prices had peaked in 1810, but reduced from £9 a ton in 1823 to £3 13s 4d a ton in 1828. Wool prices were also badly affected. This worsened the financial problems of debt-encumbered landlords. Then, in 1846, potato blight arrived in the Highlands, wiping out the essential subsistence crop for the overcrowded crofting communities. As the famine struck, the government made clear to landlords that it was their responsibility to provide famine relief for their tenants. The result of the economic downturn had been that a large proportion of Highland estates were sold in the first half of the 19th century. T M Devine points out that in the region most affected by the potato famine, by 1846, 70 per cent of the landowners were new purchasers who had not owned Highland property before 1800. More landlords were obliged to sell due to the cost of famine relief. Those who were protected from the worst of the crisis were those with extensive rental income from sheep farms. Government loans were made available for drainage works, road building and other improvements and many crofters became temporary migrants – taking work in the Lowlands. When the potato famine ceased in 1856, this established a pattern of more extensive working away from the Highlands.
The unequal concentration of land ownership remained an emotional and controversial subject, of enormous importance to the Highland economy, and eventually became a cornerstone of liberal radicalism. The poor crofters were politically powerless, and many of them turned to religion. They embraced the popularly oriented, fervently evangelical Presbyterian revival after 1800. Most joined the breakaway "Free Church" after 1843. This evangelical movement was led by lay preachers who themselves came from the lower strata, and whose preaching was implicitly critical of the established order. The religious change energised the crofters and separated them from the landlords; it helped prepare them for their successful and violent challenge to the landlords in the 1880s through the Highland Land League. Violence erupted, starting on the Isle of Skye, when Highland landlords cleared their lands for sheep and deer parks. It was quietened when the government stepped in, passing the Crofters' Holdings (Scotland) Act, 1886 to reduce rents, guarantee fixity of tenure, and break up large estates to provide crofts for the homeless. This contrasted with the Irish Land War underway at the same time, where the Irish were intensely politicised through roots in Irish nationalism, while political dimensions were limited. In 1885 three Independent Crofter candidates were elected to Parliament, which listened to their pleas. The results included explicit security for the Scottish smallholders in the "crofting counties"; the legal right to bequeath tenancies to descendants; and the creation of a Crofting Commission. The Crofters as a political movement faded away by 1892, and the Liberal Party gained their votes.
Today, the Highlands are the largest of Scotland's whisky producing regions; the relevant area runs from Orkney to the Isle of Arran in the south and includes the northern isles and much of Inner and Outer Hebrides, Argyll, Stirlingshire, Arran, as well as sections of Perthshire and Aberdeenshire. (Other sources treat The Islands, except Islay, as a separate whisky producing region.) This massive area has over 30 distilleries, or 47 when the Islands sub-region is included in the count. According to one source, the top five are The Macallan, Glenfiddich, Aberlour, Glenfarclas and Balvenie. While Speyside is geographically within the Highlands, that region is specified as distinct in terms of whisky productions. Speyside single malt whiskies are produced by about 50 distilleries.
According to Visit Scotland, Highlands whisky is "fruity, sweet, spicy, malty". Another review states that Northern Highlands single malt is "sweet and full-bodied", the Eastern Highlands and Southern Highlands whiskies tend to be "lighter in texture" while the distilleries in the Western Highlands produce single malts with a "much peatier influence".
The Scottish Reformation achieved partial success in the Highlands. Roman Catholicism remained strong in some areas, owing to remote locations and the efforts of Franciscan missionaries from Ireland, who regularly came to celebrate Mass. There remain significant Catholic strongholds within the Highlands and Islands such as Moidart and Morar on the mainland and South Uist and Barra in the southern Outer Hebrides. The remoteness of the region and the lack of a Gaelic-speaking clergy undermined the missionary efforts of the established church. The later 18th century saw somewhat greater success, owing to the efforts of the SSPCK missionaries and to the disruption of traditional society after the Battle of Culloden in 1746. In the 19th century, the evangelical Free Churches, which were more accepting of Gaelic language and culture, grew rapidly, appealing much more strongly than did the established church.
For the most part, however, the Highlands are considered predominantly Protestant, belonging to the Church of Scotland. In contrast to the Catholic southern islands, the northern Outer Hebrides islands (Lewis, Harris and North Uist) have an exceptionally high proportion of their population belonging to the Protestant Free Church of Scotland or the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland. The Outer Hebrides have been described as the last bastion of Calvinism in Britain and the Sabbath remains widely observed. Inverness and the surrounding area has a majority Protestant population, with most locals belonging to either The Kirk or the Free Church of Scotland. The church maintains a noticeable presence within the area, with church attendance notably higher than in other parts of Scotland. Religion continues to play an important role in Highland culture, with Sabbath observance still widely practised, particularly in the Hebrides.
In traditional Scottish geography, the Highlands refers to that part of Scotland north-west of the Highland Boundary Fault, which crosses mainland Scotland in a near-straight line from Helensburgh to Stonehaven. However the flat coastal lands that occupy parts of the counties of Nairnshire, Morayshire, Banffshire and Aberdeenshire are often excluded as they do not share the distinctive geographical and cultural features of the rest of the Highlands. The north-east of Caithness, as well as Orkney and Shetland, are also often excluded from the Highlands, although the Hebrides are usually included. The Highland area, as so defined, differed from the Lowlands in language and tradition, having preserved Gaelic speech and customs centuries after the anglicisation of the latter; this led to a growing perception of a divide, with the cultural distinction between Highlander and Lowlander first noted towards the end of the 14th century. In Aberdeenshire, the boundary between the Highlands and the Lowlands is not well defined. There is a stone beside the A93 road near the village of Dinnet on Royal Deeside which states 'You are now in the Highlands', although there are areas of Highland character to the east of this point.
A much wider definition of the Highlands is that used by the Scotch whisky industry. Highland single malts are produced at distilleries north of an imaginary line between Dundee and Greenock, thus including all of Aberdeenshire and Angus.
Inverness is regarded as the Capital of the Highlands, although less so in the Highland parts of Aberdeenshire, Angus, Perthshire and Stirlingshire which look more to Aberdeen, Dundee, Perth, and Stirling as their commercial centres.
The Highland Council area, created as one of the local government regions of Scotland, has been a unitary council area since 1996. The council area excludes a large area of the southern and eastern Highlands, and the Western Isles, but includes Caithness. Highlands is sometimes used, however, as a name for the council area, as in the former Highlands and Islands Fire and Rescue Service. Northern is also used to refer to the area, as in the former Northern Constabulary. These former bodies both covered the Highland council area and the island council areas of Orkney, Shetland and the Western Isles.
Much of the Highlands area overlaps the Highlands and Islands area. An electoral region called Highlands and Islands is used in elections to the Scottish Parliament: this area includes Orkney and Shetland, as well as the Highland Council local government area, the Western Isles and most of the Argyll and Bute and Moray local government areas. Highlands and Islands has, however, different meanings in different contexts. It means Highland (the local government area), Orkney, Shetland, and the Western Isles in Highlands and Islands Fire and Rescue Service. Northern, as in Northern Constabulary, refers to the same area as that covered by the fire and rescue service.
There have been trackways from the Lowlands to the Highlands since prehistoric times. Many traverse the Mounth, a spur of mountainous land that extends from the higher inland range to the North Sea slightly north of Stonehaven. The most well-known and historically important trackways are the Causey Mounth, Elsick Mounth, Cryne Corse Mounth and Cairnamounth.
Although most of the Highlands is geographically on the British mainland, it is somewhat less accessible than the rest of Britain; thus most UK couriers categorise it separately, alongside Northern Ireland, the Isle of Man, and other offshore islands. They thus charge additional fees for delivery to the Highlands, or exclude the area entirely. While the physical remoteness from the largest population centres inevitably leads to higher transit cost, there is confusion and consternation over the scale of the fees charged and the effectiveness of their communication, and the use of the word Mainland in their justification. Since the charges are often based on postcode areas, many far less remote areas, including some which are traditionally considered part of the lowlands, are also subject to these charges. Royal Mail is the only delivery network bound by a Universal Service Obligation to charge a uniform tariff across the UK. This, however, applies only to mail items and not larger packages which are dealt with by its Parcelforce division.
The Highlands lie to the north and west of the Highland Boundary Fault, which runs from Arran to Stonehaven. This part of Scotland is largely composed of ancient rocks from the Cambrian and Precambrian periods which were uplifted during the later Caledonian Orogeny. Smaller formations of Lewisian gneiss in the northwest are up to 3 billion years old. The overlying rocks of the Torridon Sandstone form mountains in the Torridon Hills such as Liathach and Beinn Eighe in Wester Ross.
These foundations are interspersed with many igneous intrusions of a more recent age, the remnants of which have formed mountain massifs such as the Cairngorms and the Cuillin of Skye. A significant exception to the above are the fossil-bearing beds of Old Red Sandstone found principally along the Moray Firth coast and partially down the Highland Boundary Fault. The Jurassic beds found in isolated locations on Skye and Applecross reflect the complex underlying geology. They are the original source of much North Sea oil. The Great Glen is formed along a transform fault which divides the Grampian Mountains to the southeast from the Northwest Highlands.
The entire region was covered by ice sheets during the Pleistocene ice ages, save perhaps for a few nunataks. The complex geomorphology includes incised valleys and lochs carved by the action of mountain streams and ice, and a topography of irregularly distributed mountains whose summits have similar heights above sea-level, but whose bases depend upon the amount of denudation to which the plateau has been subjected in various places.
Climate
The region is much warmer than other areas at similar latitudes (such as Kamchatka in Russia, or Labrador in Canada) because of the Gulf Stream making it cool, damp and temperate. The Köppen climate classification is "Cfb" at low altitudes, then becoming "Cfc", "Dfc" and "ET" at higher altitudes.
Places of interest
An Teallach
Aonach Mòr (Nevis Range ski centre)
Arrochar Alps
Balmoral Castle
Balquhidder
Battlefield of Culloden
Beinn Alligin
Beinn Eighe
Ben Cruachan hydro-electric power station
Ben Lomond
Ben Macdui (second highest mountain in Scotland and UK)
Ben Nevis (highest mountain in Scotland and UK)
Cairngorms National Park
Cairngorm Ski centre near Aviemore
Cairngorm Mountains
Caledonian Canal
Cape Wrath
Carrick Castle
Castle Stalker
Castle Tioram
Chanonry Point
Conic Hill
Culloden Moor
Dunadd
Duart Castle
Durness
Eilean Donan
Fingal's Cave (Staffa)
Fort George
Glen Coe
Glen Etive
Glen Kinglas
Glen Lyon
Glen Orchy
Glenshee Ski Centre
Glen Shiel
Glen Spean
Glenfinnan (and its railway station and viaduct)
Grampian Mountains
Hebrides
Highland Folk Museum – The first open-air museum in the UK.
Highland Wildlife Park
Inveraray Castle
Inveraray Jail
Inverness Castle
Inverewe Garden
Iona Abbey
Isle of Staffa
Kilchurn Castle
Kilmartin Glen
Liathach
Lecht Ski Centre
Loch Alsh
Loch Ard
Loch Awe
Loch Assynt
Loch Earn
Loch Etive
Loch Fyne
Loch Goil
Loch Katrine
Loch Leven
Loch Linnhe
Loch Lochy
Loch Lomond
Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park
Loch Lubnaig
Loch Maree
Loch Morar
Loch Morlich
Loch Ness
Loch Nevis
Loch Rannoch
Loch Tay
Lochranza
Luss
Meall a' Bhuiridh (Glencoe Ski Centre)
Scottish Sea Life Sanctuary at Loch Creran
Rannoch Moor
Red Cuillin
Rest and Be Thankful stretch of A83
River Carron, Wester Ross
River Spey
River Tay
Ross and Cromarty
Smoo Cave
Stob Coire a' Chàirn
Stac Polly
Strathspey Railway
Sutherland
Tor Castle
Torridon Hills
Urquhart Castle
West Highland Line (scenic railway)
West Highland Way (Long-distance footpath)
Wester Ross
Detail of the base of the slope shown in my Part 5 photo. The rock hammer was used here just to provide scale.
They're not as contorted as some other strata nearby, but these layers dipping into the hillside do have a slightly undulous look to them, almost like molded brickwork.
While it's officially named the Maravillas Chert, this Upper Ordovician formation does contain, in addition to thin beds of black chert, sandy limestone, marlstone, and shale. In this section, however, the chert predominates.
Portions of the Maravillas suggest that it was formed in part by deep-water avalanches known as turbidity currents, These occurred off the margin of Laurentia, the early-Paleozoic forerunner of modern North America, before this region merged with the South American section of Gondwana to create the Ouachita Mountains.
Among the other places in Trans-Pecos Texas the Maravillas Chert outcrops are the Marathon area and the highly thrust-faulted Persimmon Gap locale, at the northern entrance to Big Bend National Park.
For more on this amazing locale, see the other photos and descriptions in my A Magic Circle Called the Solitario album.
Two of the largest rocks among the many rock formations at Glasshouse Rocks taken just after sunrise with foreground rocks showing crystalised forms.
"Nellie Blue Flint" from the Pennsylvanian of Ohio, USA. (field of view ~4.7 centimeters across)
"Flint" is the official gemstone of Ohio. Flint is actually chert (the two terms are synonymous, despite what anyone else might say), a cryptocrystalline, quartzose sedimentary rock. High-quality, colorful, multicolored, and multipatterned flint is moderately common at some Ohio localities. A couple famous flint occurrences in east-central Ohio include the Vanport Flint at Flint Ridge and Nellie Blue Flint in Coshocton County.
Nellie Blue Flint is essentially restricted to the Nellie area of northwestern Coshocton County. It consists of attractive, frequently complexly-patterned, dark bluish to bluish-black chert. Fractures and cavities (vugs) are often present and have been filled or nearly filled with pale bluish-gray chalcedony and/or megaquartz (= visible hexagonal quartz crystals). Body fossils and trace fossils can be present.
Nellie Blue is a local color variant of the Upper Mercer Flint, which is usually a black flint with whitish speck (= often body fossils and fossil fragments). The Upper Mercer Flint is a somewhat persistent horizon of chertified marine fossiliferous limestone in east-central and eastern Ohio called the Upper Mercer Limestone.
Stratigraphy: Upper Mercer Flint (= chertified Upper Mercer Limestone), upper Bedford Cyclothem, upper Pottsville Group, Atokan Series, lower Middle Pennsylvanian
Locality: unrecorded site in eastern Ohio, USA (likely at or near the town of Nellie, northwestern Coshocton County)