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Ardnamurchan Sword, By Pieta Greaves
Ardnamurchan (, ) is a peninsula in the ward management area of Lochaber, Highland, Scotland, noted for being very unspoiled and undisturbed. Its remoteness is accentuated by the main access route being a single track road for much of its length. The most westerly point of mainland Great Britain, Corrachadh Mòr, is in Ardnamurchan. From 1930 to 1975 Ardnamurchan also gave its name to a landward district of Argyll, which covered a much wider area, including the districts of Morvern, Sunart and Ardgour. Geography Strictly speaking, Ardnamurchan covers only the peninsula beyond the villages of Salen (in the south) and Acharacle (in the north), but nowadays the term is also used more generally to include the neighbouring districts of Sunart, Ardgour, Morvern, and even Moidart (which was part of the former county of Inverness-shire, not Argyll). Ardnamurchan Point, which has the Ardnamurchan Lighthouse built on it, is commonly described as the most westerly point of the B ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lochaber
Lochaber ( ; ) is a name applied to a part of the Scottish Highlands. Historically, it was a provincial lordship consisting of the parishes of Kilmallie and Kilmonivaig. Lochaber once extended from the Northern shore of Loch Leven, a district called Nether Lochaber, to beyond Spean Bridge and Roybridge, which area is known as Brae Lochaber or ''Braigh Loch Abar'' in Gaelic. For local government purposes, the name was used for one of the landward districts of Inverness-shire from 1930 to 1975, and then for one of the districts of the Highland region from 1975 to 1996. Since 1996 the Highland Council has had a Lochaber area committee. The main town of Lochaber is Fort William. Other moderate sized settlements in Lochaber include Mallaig, Ballachulish and Glencoe. Name William Watson outlined two schools of thought on this topic. He favoured the idea that ''Abar'' came from the Pictish and Welsh for "river mouth" and that ''Loch Abar'' meant the confluence of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ardnamurchan Point
Ardnamurchan Point (, meaning "the headland of the hill of the great sea") is a peninsula in Highland, Scotland where the Ardnamurchan Lighthouse is situated. Location Ardnamurchan Point lies at the western end of the Ardnamurchan peninsula in Lochaber, Highland, Scotland. Ardnamurchan Lighthouse is located on the Point, just over 2/3 of a mile (1 km) north of Corrachadh Mòr, the most westerly point on the island of Great Britain, which is a few metres further west than the Point. The nearest settlements are the crofting townships of Portuairk 1.2 miles (2 km) and Achosnich 1.8 miles (3 km), and the village of Kilchoan 5 miles (8 km). The point lies seven miles south of the island of Muck, with Eigg and Rùm a few miles further to the north. Coll is situated nine miles to the west, and Mull is five miles south. Cultural references In 1990 the Scottish composer Judith Weir wrote a 10-minute piece for two pianos called ''Ardnamurchan Point'' for the pianists Edmund Nieman ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Báetán Mac Muirchertaig
Báetán mac Muirchertaig (died 572), also Baetán Bríge, was an Irish king who is included in some lists as a High King of Ireland. He was the son of Muirchertach mac Muiredaig (died 534), also considered a high king. He was a member of the Cenél nEógain branch of the northern Uí Néill. He ruled in Ailech from 566 to 572. The high kingship of Ireland rotated between the Cenél nEógain and Cenél Conaill branches in the late 6th century. Báetán ruled jointly with his nephew Eochaid mac Domnaill (died 572) from 569. The middle Irish king lists have misplaced their reign putting it earlier than the annalistic tradition but other king lists have them in the correct order. They are also omitted from the earliest list of Kings of Tara, the ''Baile Chuind'' (The Ecstasy of Conn), a late 7th-century Irish poem. It is possible that the Ulaid king, Báetán mac Cairill (died 579), was the actual high king at this time. In 572 the two kings were defeated and slain by Crónán ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
St Columba
Columba () or Colmcille (7 December 521 – 9 June 597 AD) was an Irish abbot and missionary evangelist credited with spreading Christianity in what is today Scotland at the start of the Hiberno-Scottish mission. He founded the important abbey on Iona, which became a dominant religious and political institution in the region for centuries. He is the patron saint of Derry. He was highly regarded by both the Gaels of Dál Riata and the Picts, and is remembered today as a Catholic saint and one of the Twelve Apostles of Ireland. Columba studied under some of Ireland's most prominent church figures and founded several monasteries in the country. Around 563 AD he and his twelve companions crossed to Dunaverty near Southend, Argyll, in Kintyre before settling in Iona in Scotland, then part of the Ulster kingdom of Dál Riata, where they founded a new abbey as a base for spreading Celtic Christianity among the pagan Northern Pictish kingdoms. He remained active in Irish politics, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 Natural satellite, moon onto its surface. Lava may be erupted at a volcano or through a Fissure vent, fracture in the Crust (geology), crust, on land or underwater, usually at temperatures from . The volcanic rock resulting from subsequent cooling is often also called ''lava''. A lava flow is an outpouring of lava during an effusive eruption. (An explosive eruption, by contrast, produces a mixture of volcanic ash and other fragments called tephra, not lava flows.) The viscosity of most lava is about that of ketchup, roughly 10,000 to 100,000 times that of water. Even so, lava can flow great distances before cooling causes it to solidify, because lava exposed to air quickly develops a solid crust that insulates the remaining liquid lava, helping to keep it hot and inviscid enough to continue flowing. Etymology The word ''lava'' comes from Ital ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Magma
Magma () is the molten or semi-molten natural material from which all igneous rocks are formed. Magma (sometimes colloquially but incorrectly referred to as ''lava'') is found beneath the surface of the Earth, and evidence of magmatism has also been discovered on other terrestrial planets and some natural satellites. Besides molten rock, magma may also contain suspended crystals and volcanic gas, gas bubbles. Magma is produced by melting of the mantle (geology), mantle or the Crust (geology), crust in various tectonics, tectonic settings, which on Earth include subduction zones, continental rift (geology), rift zones, mid-ocean ridges and Hotspot (geology), hotspots. Mantle and crustal melts migrate upwards through the crust where they are thought to be stored in magma chambers or trans-crustal crystal mush, crystal-rich mush zones. During magma's storage in the crust, its composition may be modified by Fractional crystallization (geology), fractional crystallization, contaminati ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Plagioclase
Plagioclase ( ) is a series of Silicate minerals#Tectosilicates, tectosilicate (framework silicate) minerals within the feldspar group. Rather than referring to a particular mineral with a specific chemical composition, plagioclase is a continuous solid solution series, more properly known as the plagioclase feldspar series. This was first shown by the German mineralogist Johann F. C. Hessel, Johann Friedrich Christian Hessel (1796–1872) in 1826. The series ranges from albite to anorthite endmembers (with respective compositions NaAlSi3O8 to CaAl2Si2O8), where sodium and calcium atoms can substitute for each other in the mineral's crystallography, crystal lattice structure. Plagioclase in hand samples is often identified by its polysynthetic crystal twinning or "phonograph record, record-groove" effect. Plagioclase is a major constituent mineral in Earth's crust and is consequently an important diagnostic tool in petrology for identifying the composition, origin and evolutio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Outcrop
An outcrop or rocky outcrop is a visible exposure of bedrock or ancient superficial deposits on the surface of the Earth and other terrestrial planets. Features Outcrops do not cover the majority of the Earth's land surface because in most places the bedrock or superficial deposits are covered by soil and vegetation and cannot be seen or examined closely. However, in places where the overlying cover is removed through erosion or tectonic uplift, the rock may be exposed, or ''crop out''. Such exposure will happen most frequently in areas where erosion is rapid and exceeds the weathering rate such as on steep hillsides, mountain ridges and tops, river banks, and tectonically active areas. In Finland, glacial erosion during the last glacial maximum (ca. 11000 BC), followed by scouring by sea waves, followed by isostatic uplift has produced many smooth coastal and littoral outcrops. Bedrock and superficial deposits may also be exposed at the Earth's surface due to human exca ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Phenocryst
image:montblanc granite phenocrysts.JPG, 300px, Granites often have large feldspar, feldspathic phenocrysts. This granite, from the Switzerland, Swiss side of the Mont Blanc massif, has large white phenocrysts of plagioclase (that have trapezoid shapes when cut through). 1 euro coin (diameter 2.3 cm) for scale. A phenocryst is an early forming, relatively large and usually conspicuous crystal distinctly larger than the grains of the rock Matrix (geology), groundmass of an igneous rock. Such rocks that have a distinct difference in the size of the crystals are called Porphyry (geology), porphyries, and the adjective porphyritic is used to describe them. Phenocrysts often have euhedral forms, either due to early growth within a magma, or by post-emplacement recrystallization (geology), recrystallization. Normally the term ''phenocryst'' is not used unless the crystals are directly observable, which is sometimes stated as greater than in diameter. Phenocrysts below this level, but s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ring Dike
A ring dike or ring dyke is an Intrusive rock, intrusive igneous body that is circular, oval or arcuate in plan and has steep contacts. While the widths of ring dikes differ, they can be up to several thousand meters. The most commonly accepted method of ring dike formation is directly related to collapse calderas.Gudmundsson, Agust. "Formation of collapse calderas." ''Geology'' 16.9 (1988): 808–10. Caldera collapse and ring dike formation Collapse calderas form due to the emptying of a magma chamber. Effusive eruptions that take place on the flanks of the associated volcano and a Fissure vent, fissure system that direct magma away from the chamber are both mechanisms that can empty a magma chamber. As pressure in the magma chamber changes, an increase in tensile stresses create tension fractures at the surface of the volcano. The geometry of the top of the magma chamber dictates the location and magnitude of the tension fractures. In addition, it was found that the higher th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lopolith
A lopolith is a large igneous intrusion which is lenticular in shape with a depressed central region. Lopoliths are generally concordant with the intruded strata with dike or funnel-shaped feeder bodies below the body. The term was first defined and used by Frank Fitch Grout during the early 1900s in describing the Duluth gabbro complex in northern Minnesota and adjacent Ontario. Lopoliths typically consist of large layered intrusions that range in age from Archean to Eocene. Examples include the Duluth gabbro, the Sudbury igneous complex of Ontario, the Bushveld igneous complex of South Africa, the Great Dyke in Zimbabwe, the Skaergaard complex of Greenland and the Humboldt lopolith of Nevada. The Sudbury occurrence has been attributed to an impact event and associated crustal melting. See also * Laccolith * Phacolith *Batholith A batholith () is a large mass of intrusive rock, intrusive igneous rock (also called plutonic rock), larger than in area, that forms from c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
