East Fife Coast

Geological Conservation Review site | GCR #1391 | Igneous Petrology | Carboniferous - Permian Igneous

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.

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Summary

The East Fife coast from Largo Bay to St Monance provides exceptional, and in some aspects unrivalled, exposures of volcanic vents and intrusions which demonstrate par excellence the structural relationships between the igneous rocks and the strata within which they have been emplaced. Many of the vents contain fragments of unusual rock-types rich in magnesium and iron. These are interpreted as samples derived from beneath the Earth's crust and brought up many kilometres to present surface levels by the ascent of the magma which caused the vulcanicity. As such they are of the greatest significance for the light they throw on the nature of the fluid interior of the Earth during the period of volcanic activity.

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