Loch Buie ( gd, Locha Buidhe, meaning "yellow loch") is a

sea loch ''Loch'' () is the Scottish Gaelic, Scots and Irish word for a lake or sea inlet. It is cognate with the Manx lough, Cornish logh, and one of the Welsh words for lake, llwch. In English English and Hiberno-English, the anglicised spelling ...

on the south coast of the

Isle of Mull The Isle of Mull ( gd, An t-Eilean Muileach ) or just Mull (; gd, Muile, links=no ) is the second-largest island of the Inner Hebrides (after Skye) and lies off the west coast of Scotland in the Council areas of Scotland, council area of Arg ...

, off the west coast of

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...

. It takes the form of a deep bay opening onto the

Firth of Lorn The Firth of Lorn or Lorne ( gd, An Linne Latharnach) is the inlet of the sea between the south-east coast of the Isle of Mull and the mainland of Scotland. It includes a number of islands, and is noted for the variety of wildlife habitats that ...

. At the head of the loch is the settlement of Lochbuie at the end of a minor road form the A849 at Ardura. There are a handful of small islands and rocky islets close to shore, the largest of which is Eilean Mor which is connected to the mainland of Mull at low tide. Nearby is

Moy Castle Moy Castle is a ruined castle near Lochbuie on the Isle of Mull, Scotland. The site is now a scheduled monument. History The land upon which Moy Castle was built was granted to Hector Reaganach Maclean, 1st Laird of Lochbuie, brother of Lachla ...

. There are extensive shore platforms around the loch, notably on its southeastern side beneath Laggan Deer Forest. Numerous caves are located at the rear of this platform including Uaimh nan Taillearan. Sandy beaches lie at the head of the loch. The cliffs at either side are formed from

basalt Basalt (; ) is an aphanite, aphanitic (fine-grained) extrusive igneous rock formed from the rapid cooling of low-viscosity lava rich in magnesium and iron (mafic lava) exposed at or very near the planetary surface, surface of a terrestrial ...

lava Lava is molten or partially molten rock (magma) that has been expelled from the interior of a terrestrial planet (such as Earth) or a moon onto its surface. Lava may be erupted at a volcano or through a fracture in the crust, on land or un ...

flows of

Palaeogene The Paleogene ( ; also spelled Palaeogene or Palæogene; informally Lower Tertiary or Early Tertiary) is a geologic period and system that spans 43 million years from the end of the Cretaceous Period million years ago ( Mya) to the beginning o ...

age, intruded by numerous

dolerite Diabase (), also called dolerite () or microgabbro, is a mafic, holocrystalline, subvolcanic rock equivalent to volcanic basalt or plutonic gabbro. Diabase dikes and sills are typically shallow intrusive bodies and often exhibit fine-grained ...

dykes. At the head of the loch, the rocks include

granophyre Granophyre ( ; from ''granite'' and ''porphyry'') is a subvolcanic rock that contains quartz and alkali feldspar in characteristic angular intergrowths such as those in the accompanying image. The texture is called granophyric. The texture can be ...

s and

gabbro Gabbro () is a phaneritic (coarse-grained), mafic intrusive igneous rock formed from the slow cooling of magnesium-rich and iron-rich magma into a holocrystalline mass deep beneath the Earth's surface. Slow-cooling, coarse-grained gabbro is che ...

. Though unseen at the surface, the

Great Glen Fault The Great Glen Fault is a strike-slip fault that runs through the Great Glen in Scotland. The fault is mostly inactive today, but occasional moderate tremors have been recorded over the past 150 years. Location Aligned northeast to southwest, t ...

is usually considered to run beneath this loch and nearby

Loch Spelve Loch Spelve is a sea loch on the southeast coast of the Isle of Mull, off the west coast of Scotland. It is almost landlocked with a relatively narrow opening onto the Firth of Lorn. The A849 road runs past the northern arm of the loch and a minor ...

References

{{coord, 56.338, -5.888, type:waterbody_region:GB, display=title Buie Buie Loch Buie