Great Glen East - Chanonry and Ardersier EarthCache
Great Glen East - Chanonry and Ardersier
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Fantastic views over the Great Glen fault and the glacial / coastal features of Chanonry Point and Ardersier. Easily accessible and suitable for wheelchair users.
The Great Glen Fault is perhaps best known for its most striking feature, Loch Ness. However, the fault extends many hundreds of miles both north east and south west of this loch.
It is so huge, that the fault line is easily visible from space as an enormous diagonal feature stretching right across the Highlands of Scotland.
Caused by a continental collision about 400 million years ago, a huge trench was created. Subsequent ice ages scoured out the fault even more and here, at Chanonry Point, a large spit of land can be seen thrusting out across the Moray Firth. This spit or bar, is almost entirely made of glacial boulders deposited by ice. The most recent glacial retreat was about about 12000 years ago. On the other, southern, side of the Firth, Fort George, Europes largest fortified building, is built from the local rock on the end of another geological feature, a coastal deposit of shifting sands and shingle - left by wind and sea action. The history of towns and villages along this southern coast is littered with references of lost villages and townships that, almost overnight, disappeared beneath the stormy waves or under wind blown sand dunes.
On the northern side of the Firth, where this Earthcache is located, cliffs of some of Europes oldest rocks can be seen and quarrying of the rock has taken place over hundreds of years to provide building stone on a large scale. This stone can be seen in ancient buildings such as Fortrose Cathedral.
To claim this cache carry out these two tasks:
1) Visit the cache coordinates and take a photograph of yourself with GPS with Chanonry Point and Ardersier in view. Post this in your online log.
2) From this point an obvious feature that exploits the local rock is visible NOT VERY FAR to the east and down. (This is not Fort George which is far awayand not to the east!!) What is this feature and what is the type of rock? Email me the answers to this and do not post online!
Logs that do not fulfil these educational guidelines, set by the Earthcaching organisation, will be deleted! See www.earthcache.org
Please note: If you wish to get a reply from the cache Owner concerning your answer, you will need to include your Geocaching personal email address when you send in the info. I own a number of Earthcaches and it takes much longer to reply if I have to search for your GC caching name via your profile. Thanks!
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