Raised Beach At Loch Tarbert On History Visit To Island Of Jura Inner Hebrides Scotland

Tour Scotland travel video clip, with Scottish music, of the raised beach at Loch Tarbert on ancestry, genealogy, history visit to Island Of Jura, Inner Hebrides. The sea loch is about four miles long and almost cuts Jura in half. This beach is internationally important for its superb examples of raised shore platforms and raised beaches. These landforms reflect changes in relative sea level associated with the growth and decay of ice sheets during the Quaternary Ice Age. Along with northern Islay, the West Coast of Jura contains some of the finest examples of raised shore platforms and unvegetated raised shingle ridges in western Europe. Three shore platforms have been identified: the High, Main and Low Rock Platforms. The High Rock Platform is well developed north of Loch Tarbert. It probably formed by a combination of marine and cold-climate shore processes during successive glacial periods at times when the margin of the Scottish ice sheet lay to the east of Jura. The island has a number of raised beaches, which are regarded as a geological feature of international importance. During glacial periods, sea level fell as expanding ice sheets locked up the world’s fresh waters, and rose again during interglacials when the glaciers melted and released their water back into the sea. The level of the land has also varied, the crust sinking under the weight of the ice sheets and slowly rising up again when they melted. Because the crust was pushed down further where the ice was thicker, areas near the centre of the ice sheet, roughly centred on Rannoch Moor, have had further to rebound and are still continuing to rise today. In contrast, in those areas near the periphery of the ice sheet (e.g. the Northern and Western Isles), most of the uplift was completed a few thousand years ago, so that relative sea level has been rising there. Relative sea level attained its highest level around 15,000 years ago as the Scottish ice sheet was melting rapidly and the land was still pushed down; a later, lower peak occurred around 7,000 years ago, following the final melting of the North American and Scandinavian ice sheets. Traditionally, Loch Tarbert was the landing place of people living on Colonsay All photographs are copyright of Sandy Stevenson, Tour Scotland, and may not be used without permission.

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