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Bennane Head, Balcreuchan Port, Ayrshire.
NGR: | NX 09930 87610 |
WGS84: | 55.14624, -4.98408 |
Length: | Not recorded |
Vert. Range: | Not recorded |
Altitude: | Not recorded |
Geology: | Ballantrae Ophiolite Complex - Basalt, pillow-lava |
Tags: | Cave, SeaCave |
Registry: | main |
Raised sea cave, dry within. A roomy winding initial passage forks into two walking-sized sections at a junction c. 20m from entrance. The lengthy left-hand passage then diverges further at a small chamber near its terminus. Pillow lavas of the Ballantrae ophiolite are superbly exposed throughout, and are covered by a large amount of graffiti in places. From distant memory, the otherwise dry cave requires low tide to reach its entrance in a notch at the end of a short promontory. Torch required for majority of cave. [I. Greig]
The Tertiary dyke is intruded into highly altered ultramafic rock which at this locality consists largely of a mass of basaltic pillow lavas intruded by secondary quartz and carbonate veins. Such alteration is fairly common at the margins of serpentinised ultramafic bodies and is generally regarded as a side effect of the serpentinisation process. A north-south fault marks the east margin of Balcreuchan Port, beyond which the steep sea cliffs are formed by basalt lavas, both massive and pillowed. The petrographical and geochemical characteristics of the volcanic rocks are typical of lavas erupted in oceanic island arcs above subduction zones (Thirlwall and Bluck, 1984; Smellie and Stone, 1988 and references therein). Most of the sequence is tholeiitic but it includes some boninitic lavas with exceptionally high contents of Cr and Ni. This lava variety is relatively rare and modern examples are found exclusively in oceanic island arcs (Smellie and Stone, 1992). Within the lava sequence a cave, controlled by minor faulting, is reputed to have been the home of Sawney Bean and his family, the notorious 16th century cannibals.
Alternate Names: Sawney Bean's Cave
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This entry was last updated: 2024-09-02 17:16:06
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