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Eigg (ɛg; Eige; Eigg) is one of the Small Isles in the Scottish Inner Hebrides. It lies to the south of the Isle of Skye and to the north of the Ardnamurchan peninsula. Eigg is long from north to south, and east to west. With an area of , it is the second-largest of the Small Isles after Rùm. Eigg generates virtually all of its electricity using renewable energy. Eigg has been owned by the Isle of Eigg Heritage Trust since 1997, as a community ownership; another stakeholder, the Scottish Wildlife Trust, manages the island as a nature reserve. In April 2019, National Geographic discussed the island in an online article, estimating the population at 107 and the average number of annual visitors at 10,000. The larger part of the island is formed from olivine-phyric basalt flows erupted during the Palaeocene epoch. Together with flows of hawaiite and mugearite, these form the Eigg Lava Formation. The Sgùrr is formed from porphyritic rhyolitic pitchstone erupted into a valley during the Eocene epoch. It displays columnar jointing formed as the lava cooled. Outcrops of an underlying conglomerate containing clasts of Torridonian sandstone and basalt are visible in places. These igneous and sedimentary rocks are collected together as the Sgùrr of Eigg Pitchstone Formation. In the north of the island are a series of sedimentary rocks of Middle Jurassic and Upper Cretaceous age. The oldest of these, and hence lowest from a stratigraphic perspective is the fossiliferous Bearreraig Sandstone which is calcareous in nature. It is overlain by the Lealt Shale which consists of a lower and an upper grey shale (respectively the Kildonnan and Lonfearn members) separated by a thin band of algal limestone. The shale is overlain by the thicker Valtos Sandstone which contains concretions. It is found along the east coast northwards from Poll nam Parlan and around the northern end and down the eastern side of the Bay of Laig. This in turn is overlain by the bivalve-rich limestone and shale of the Duntulm Formation and lastly the dark shales and ostracod-bearing limestones of the Kilmaluag Formation.

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Related concepts (8)

Canadian Gaelic

Canadian Gaelic or Cape Breton Gaelic (Gàidhlig Chanada, A' Ghàidhlig Chanadach or Gàidhlig Cheap Bhreatainn), often known in Canadian English simply as Gaelic, is a collective term for the dialects of Scottish Gaelic spoken in Atlantic Canada. Scottish Gaels were settled in Nova Scotia from 1773, with the arrival of the ship Hector and continuing until the 1850s. Gaelic has been spoken since then in Nova Scotia on Cape Breton Island and on the northeastern mainland of the province.

Rùm

Rùm (rɣuːm), a Scottish Gaelic name often anglicised to Rum (rʌm), is one of the Small Isles of the Inner Hebrides, off the west coast of Scotland, in the district of Lochaber. For much of the 20th century the name became Rhum, a spelling invented by the former owner, Sir George Bullough, because he did not relish the idea of having the title "Laird of Rum". It is the largest of the Small Isles, and the 15th largest Scottish island, but is inhabited by 40 people, all of whom live in the hamlet of Kinloch on the east coast.

Somerled

Somerled (died 1164), known in Middle Irish as Somairle, Somhairle, and Somhairlidh, and in Old Norse as Sumarliði ˈsumɑrˌliðe, was a mid-12th-century Norse-Gaelic lord who, through marital alliance and military conquest, rose in prominence to create the Kingdom of Argyll and the Isles. Little is certain of Somerled's origins, although he may have been born in northern Ireland and appears to have belonged to a Norse–Gaelic family of some prominence.