Balnakeil
Geological Conservation Review site | GCR #303 | Stratigraphy | Arenig - Llanvirn
Scotland's geosites are chosen because of their local, national or international importance. Take only photos, leave only footprints: avoid causing any damage to this site. You can walk almost anywhere in Scotland without the need to ask permission or keep to paths, but you have a responsibility to care for your own safety, to respect people's privacy and peace of mind and to cause no damage.
This site is a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI). It is an offence to intentionally or recklessly damage the protected natural features of a SSSI, and this includes unauthorised sample collection.
The right of access does not extend to quarries, building sites or any land where public access is prohibited, or to the collection of geological samples.
Summary
An historically famous geological site of international significance for its Cambro-Ordovician sedimentary rock sequence. The site is the type locality for the Durness Limestone, and includes representative portions of six of the Durness Limestone's formations, notably the basal Ordovician Balnakeil, Croisaphuill and Durine formations. The prolific molluscan faunas of the Durness Limestone, particularly in the Balnakeil and Croisaphuill formations, allow correlations with the Canadian Series of North America and Greenland. They prove conclusively that north-west Scotland at that time lay on the opposite side of the Lower Palaeozoic Proto-Atlantic Ocean from the rest of Britain and most of western Europe. One of Britain's outstanding earth science sites, of key importance in studies of transatlantic correlation, palaeogeography and faunas.
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