Sea Stacks Off The Coast On Visit To The Orkney Islands Scotland

Tour Scotland travel video, with Scottish music, of sea stacks off the coast and waters on visit to the Orkney Islands. A stack or sea stack is a geological landform consisting of a steep and often vertical column or columns of rock in the sea near a coast, formed by wave erosion. Stacks are formed over time by wind and water, processes of coastal geomorphology. They are formed when part of a headland is eroded by hydraulic action, which is the force of the sea or water crashing against the rock. The force of the water weakens cracks in the headland, causing them to later collapse, forming free-standing stacks and even a small island. Without the constant presence of water, stacks also form when a natural arch collapses under gravity, due to sub-aerial processes like wind erosion. Erosion causes the arch to collapse, leaving the pillar of hard rock standing away from the coast, the stack. Eventually, erosion will cause the stack to collapse, leaving a stump. Stacks can provide important nesting locations for seabirds, and many are popular for rock climbing. Orkney; Scots: Orkney; Old Norse: Orkneyjar; Norn: Orknøjar, also known as the Orkney Islands, is an archipelago in the Northern Isles of Scotland, situated off the north coast of the island of Great Britain. Orkney is 10 miles North of the coast of Caithness and has about 70 islands, of which 20 are inhabited. The largest island, Mainland, is often referred to as " the Mainland ", and has an area of 202 square miles, making it the sixth largest Scottish island and the tenth largest island in the British Isles All photographs are copyright of Sandy Stevenson, Tour Scotland, and may not be used without permission.

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