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Geo na Muirbhuaile

Hirta, St Kilda, Invernessshire.

A large arched entrance at the base of the high cliffs on the east side of Hirta gave access to a large and generally linear cave passage that extended into the island approximately westward for more than 100 m. The first 100 m of this passage were surveyed. The floor of the passage was at a depth of ~25 m BCD at the entrance and rose gradually to a depth of 12.5 m BCD at a point 100 m in from the entrance. The majority of the cave floor was composed of well rounded, mobile boulders and cobbles. In places there were bedrock outcrops and pinnacles (e.g. at ~90 m from the entrance) but all surfaces in the floor area were smoothly rounded. Most sublittoral passage walls were steep bedrock with relatively few significant ledges. Intertidal passage walls and the ceiling in the entrance area were all steep or overhanging bedrock with the cave ceiling estimated to be at about 8 m ACD. Further within the cave the surveyors avoided these shallower and surface areas due to excessive wave surge. [Report 1044]

Alternate Names: None recorded.

Notes: Length is a minimum estimate based on 100 m surveyed by the Report 1044 team plus 5 m guess beyond that. Other dimensions scaled from the Report 1044 plan.