Dalroy and Clava Landforms

Also within

Inverness County

Condition (NatureScot)

Geology & landscape

Geological Feature: Gorge / Ravine

Landscape processes: Fluvial, Glacial

Description

DALROY AND CLAVA LANDFORMS This fluvio-glacial landform is located on the south-eastern side of the Nairn Valley 9km to the east of Inverness. It is a series of terraces consisting of deep glacial deposits. These kame terraces form a series of almost unbroken steps which were cut into by a glacial meltwater channel at Dalroy forming a steep gorge. This SSSI is renowned for its “high-level shell beds”. These fossil rich marine clays occur at around 150m above present sea-level and were first recorded in the 1800’s. Over the years there has been much debate concerning their age, origin and possible relationship with other shelly deposits in Scotland. However, recent research has shown that they were deposited late during the last ice age when sea levels were higher. They were then transported to Clava by the last Scottish ice sheet. The constituents of the shelly deposit are important because they provide information about the environment and climate at the time when the sediment was deposited. Clava is also noted as a particularly fine example of “flow tills”. Tills are sediments that were laid down directly from ice, either underneath or at the margins of ice bodies. The tills at Clava contain a wide variety of different sizes of unsorted stones and rocks. The presence and composition of the till provides a key to understanding the location of glaciers during the last ice age as well as the direction in which they moved.