Langamull - great beach and great views
Posted: Sunday, 10 June 2007 |
Back from a rather nice week in Braemar, needed to get away from the unpacking, cleaning and all that stuff. Where else but a nice beach? Langamull is a great spot. Been a long time since we were there so off we went.
Not quite as accesible as Calgary, but it is probably a lot quieter because of it. The view to Rum is super (a bit hazy in this pic mind you - it was that sort of day)
looking across to Rum, very hazy.
There is a lovely little inlet, where the sealooked really nice:
And heres another view:
Just liek the Aegean, eh? Until you dip your foot in, I suspect.... Mountainman, being a landlubber and proud of it keeps well away from the sea, so dont ask me!
The geology of this area appears to be fairly uniform - basalt, basalt, more basalt, but occasionally you get this sort of thing: a rather fine igneous dyke near the inlet, showing good jointing - thats the columnar structure you can see here. The thrift plant gives an idea of the scale:
Not spectacular, but you get the drift. However, there was another really obvious feature which is quite common among the rocks of North Mull in particular:
That bright red rock you see near the water is basalt that has been weathered to produce what is known as a "red bole" These are quite common and can be seen all over Mull. Look for it in the road cuttings on the Salen Tobermory road. They represent periods of time, sometimes considerable, when no lava was being deposited and are good indicators of the top of a lava flow.
So that was that - got a few more outings planned for the near future, so stay tuned!
James
Not quite as accesible as Calgary, but it is probably a lot quieter because of it. The view to Rum is super (a bit hazy in this pic mind you - it was that sort of day)
looking across to Rum, very hazy.
There is a lovely little inlet, where the sealooked really nice:
And heres another view:
Just liek the Aegean, eh? Until you dip your foot in, I suspect.... Mountainman, being a landlubber and proud of it keeps well away from the sea, so dont ask me!
The geology of this area appears to be fairly uniform - basalt, basalt, more basalt, but occasionally you get this sort of thing: a rather fine igneous dyke near the inlet, showing good jointing - thats the columnar structure you can see here. The thrift plant gives an idea of the scale:
Not spectacular, but you get the drift. However, there was another really obvious feature which is quite common among the rocks of North Mull in particular:
That bright red rock you see near the water is basalt that has been weathered to produce what is known as a "red bole" These are quite common and can be seen all over Mull. Look for it in the road cuttings on the Salen Tobermory road. They represent periods of time, sometimes considerable, when no lava was being deposited and are good indicators of the top of a lava flow.
So that was that - got a few more outings planned for the near future, so stay tuned!
James
Comments
ok-- not the Aegean-- but a lot more sandier beaches no?? so more comfort,no????
carol from near the med
How do you get there? Is it on the same road to Croig? Coming back for year 8 in July. Looks like a good walk. grateful for any info. Thanks
cathy from kilmarnock
Thanks again for great pics - I love to hear how you 'read' the landscape. When you say a considerable period of time, how long would that be?
Jill from EK
Jill, that is a very good question - some of these boles vary considerably in thickness, so the time probably varies quite a bit. However, regarding the shortest time for one to form, I am not really sure. There are quite a few references to these things online but the really detailed articles are all locked up in peer reviewed scientific journals. Any simpler info that is available doesnt really seem to say how long! Maybe I should consult some of my friends who are active in research to find out! Certainly the total time for the Mull igneous activity is relatively short - it was about 5 million years. That is fairly short geologically and there are a lot of individual lava flows extruded within that time, so who knows? I'll try to find out more - it is a question that has certainly occurred to me a few times.
Mountainman from Tobermory
James, to the nearest million years would do :-) I wondered if it was tens, hundreds, thousands or millions - a mere blink of an eye in geological terms, I know. It certainly is quite striking, but had I not read your blog I would just have taken it to be a different rock stratum.
Jill from EK
At least a thousand for the thinnest and perhaps 10's to 100's of thousands for the thicker red bole weathering. Remember these lavas were erupted at a lower latitude also, as 60 ma Alba was a good bit further south. The fossil trees and leafs as well as some inter-lava sediments-sands, shales, conglomerates and even coals-all indicate some big time gaps between eruptions of these flood basalts. It's not really environments that change-it is more like continents moving about the globe into different environments!
Blaven Viewer from Kyle
Exploring the hills and coasts of Mull and Iona and occasionally elsewhere, with a close eye on the geology
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