Creag Mhor - The Rhinns of Islay

September 03, 2014

Creag-Mhor---The-Rinns-of-I

Photographer: Stu Witmer
Summary Author: Stu Witmer

Shown above is Creag Mhor on the Rhinns of Islay, Scotland. Translating from Scots Gaelic we have something along the lines of Big Craggy Hill on the Promontory of Islay. No one’s quite sure of the origin of the name Islay, but it's pronounced Eye-la. The Rhinns makes up the southwestern peninsula of this horseshoe-shaped island and is separated from the rest of the island both geographically and geologically at the Gruinart Fault. It's is one of the few places in Scotland where Pre-Caledonian basement rocks are exposed as outcrops. These rocks are among the oldest rock in Europe, perhaps as old as 1.8 billion years, during which time they underwent considerable folding and metamorphism. The Rhinns complex may be related to rocks of similar age in North America, Greenland, and Scandinavia, which formed part of the southern margin of the Laurentia-Baltica supercontinent. Many of the other geologic features of Islay originated about 500 to 400 million years ago as European and North American tectonic plates collided.

Photo details: Camera Model: Canon PowerShot SD1300 IS; Focal Length: 10.9mm; Aperture: f/4.0; Exposure Time: 0.0040 s (1/250); ISO equiv: 80; Three images stitched together with HugIn software.