Muckle Green Holm is an uninhabited
island
An island (or isle) is an isolated piece of habitat that is surrounded by a dramatically different habitat, such as water. Very small islands such as emergent land features on atolls can be called islets, skerries, cays or keys. An island ...
in the North Isles of the
Orkney archipelago in
Scotland
Scotland (, ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a Anglo-Scottish border, border with England to the southeast ...
. It is roughly in extent and rises to above sea level, the summit having a
triangulation pillar
A triangulation station, also known as a trigonometrical point, and sometimes informally as a trig, is a fixed surveying station, used in geodetic surveying and other surveying projects in its vicinity. The nomenclature varies regionally: they a ...
.
Name
'Muckle' is
Scots for 'big' or 'large'; 'holm' is from the
Old Norse
Old Norse, Old Nordic, or Old Scandinavian, is a stage of development of North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and their overseas settlemen ...
''holmr'', a small and rounded islet.
Geography
To the south lies
Little Green Holm, and between the two is the Sound of Green Holms. Eastward is a strait called Fall of Warness between Muckle Green Holm and the much larger island of
Eday
Eday (, sco, Aidee) is one of the islands of Orkney, which are located to the north of the Scottish mainland. One of the North Isles, Eday is about from the Orkney Mainland. With an area of , it is the ninth-largest island of the archipelago. ...
.
Muckle Green Holm has a
great cormorant
The great cormorant (''Phalacrocorax carbo''), known as the black shag in New Zealand and formerly also known as the great black cormorant across the Northern Hemisphere, the black cormorant in Australia, and the large cormorant in India, is a w ...
colony and a population of
European otter
The Eurasian otter (''Lutra lutra''), also known as the European otter, Eurasian river otter, common otter, and Old World otter, is a semiaquatic mammal native to Eurasia. The most widely distributed member of the otter subfamily (Lutrinae) of th ...
s.
[
]
Tidal power
The Fall of Warness has strong tidal currents suitable for tidal power
Tidal power or tidal energy is harnessed by converting energy from tides into useful forms of power, mainly electricity using various methods.
Although not yet widely used, tidal energy has the potential for future electricity generation. Ti ...
.
Starting in 2007, the European Marine Energy Centre
The European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC) Ltd is a UKAS accredited test and research center focusing on wave and tidal power development based in the Orkney Islands, UK. The centre provides developers with the opportunity to test full-scale grid ...
installed tidal power testing equipment.tidal turbine
A tidal stream generator, often referred to as a tidal energy converter (TEC), is a machine that extracts energy from moving masses of water, in particular tides, although the term is often used in reference to machines designed to extract energ ...
called Orbital O2
The Orbital O2 is a floating 2MW tidal stream generator, tidal turbine that began generating power for the UK grid in July 2021. It was designed and built by Orbital Marine Power Ltd., a privately held company with offices in Orkney and Edinburgh. ...
that supplies 2MW to the electrical grid.
See also
List of Orkney islands
This is a list of Orkney islands in Scotland. The Orkney archipelago is located north of mainland Scotland and comprises over 70 islands and skerries, of which 20 are permanently inhabited. In addition to the Orkney Mainland there are three gr ...
Notes and references
External links
Uninhabited islands of Orkney
{{Orkney-geo-stub