Ardnamurchan

Ardnamurchan (Scottish Gaelic: Àird nam Murchan [aːrˠʃtʲ nə ˈmuɾuxan]) is a 50-square-mile (130-square-kilometre) peninsula in the ward management area of Lochaber, Highland, Scotland, noted for its remoteness and rural nature. Its remoteness is accentuated by the main access route being a single track road for much of its length. The most westerly point of mainland Great Britain, Corrachadh Mòr, is in Ardnamurchan. The area was historically ruled by the Clan MacDonald of Ardnamurchan from the 1300s until 1618. From 1930 to 1975 Ardnamurchan also gave its name to a landward district of Argyll, which covered a much wider area, including the districts of Morvern, Sunart and Ardgour.

Strictly speaking, Ardnamurchan covers only the peninsula beyond the villages of Salen (in the south) and Acharacle (in the north), but nowadays the term is also used more generally to include the neighbouring districts of Sunart, Ardgour, Morvern, and even Moidart (which is part of the county of Inverness-shire, not Argyll). Ardnamurchan Point, which has the 36-metre-tall (118 ft) Ardnamurchan Lighthouse built on it, is commonly described as the most westerly point of the British mainland although Corrachadh Mòr, a kilometre to the south, is a few metres farther west.

The north western corner of Ardnamurchan consists of a lopolith (previously interpreted as a ring dyke) that has been exposed at the surface. Evidence for such a structure can be identified from the phenocrysts in the rock exposures around the area of interest which show plagioclase crystals aligned towards the centre of the complex, an alignment caused by magmatic flow within a lopolith. Relatively small areas of lava that were ejected onto the surface are found in some parts of the peninsula, close to the inner edges of the area of interest. The sub-concentric rings of the geologic structure can easily be seen in satellite photographs and on topographic maps, though they are less obvious on the ground. At least seven other similar complexes of the same tectonic episode exist along the west coast of Britain, and these are popular sites for many university geological training courses.

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