S' Airde Beinn
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Condition (NatureScot)
| Unit | Feature | Condition | Area (ha) | Assessed |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| F1 | Mineralogy of Scotland | Favourable | — | 2005-03-31 |
| F2 | Tertiary Igneous | Favourable | — | 2013-01-18 |
Geology & landscape
Rock Type: Basalt
Landscape processes: Volcanic / Igneous
Description
S' Airde Beinn S’ Airde Beinn, lying 4km southwest of Tobermory on the Isle of Mull, is a small but conspicuous rock-girt hill carved from a mass of coarse-grained basalt. It represents part of a lava flow that failed to reach the surface, and remained within the feeder pipe to solidify as a plug. The plug cuts the flat lying terraced lava flows of the Mull Volcano. Such plugs are of limited occurrence in the Tertiary Igneous Province and are best developed in northern Mull. S’Airde Beinn is both the largest and the best known, having been investigated for over a century. The geological interest of the site has been enhanced by research which has found that as the molten rock cooled it produced heat that baked or altered the surrounding rock, a process known as ‘thermal metamorphism’. This alteration produced new minerals including larnite, rankinite and wollastonite, all relatively rare in Scotland.