Loch Ness
Loch Ness is a large freshwater loch in Inverness-shire. Lying in the Scottish Highlands, it is the largest lake by volume in Great Britain, being 23 miles long, one mile wide, and almost 900 feet deep in places.
Geologists believe that the present day Loch Ness dates from the end of the Ice Age.[1] During the ice age, the Great Glen was occupied by a huge glacier which filled the valley above the level of the present watershed, and extended into the Moray Firth. This glacier found the shattered rock along the fault easy to erode, which accounts for the great depth of Loch Ness to 600 feet below sea level. The underwater perimeter of the lake is glacially smoothed and very steep. Above Foyers Bay at the deepest section, there is 500 feet of water only 60 feet out from the bank.
Loch Ness is most famous for unsubstantiated reports, some fraudulent, of the "Loch Ness Monster", a large, dinosaur-shaped creature said to inhabit the loch. The size of the lake makes a full search of the lake unfeasible.
Geography
The settlements and landmarks that lie on of near Loch Ness include Lochend on the northern shore, Dores, Inverfarigaig, Foyers and Whitebridge on the eastern shore, Fort Augustus on the southern shore and Abriachan, Drumnadrochit, Urquhart Castle and Invermoriston on the western shore.
Transport
The A82 road, which runs north from Glasgow to the Highlands, skirts the north-western shore of the loch as part of the section between Fort William and its northern terminus at Inverness. The A887 runs north-west from Invermoriston to the A87 road, which in turn takes traffic north to Uig on the Isle of Skye.
Notes
- ↑ According to secular scientists, this lasted 20,000 years and finished 10,000 years ago, and was the most recent of several. According to creationary scientists, the Ice Age lasted a few hundred years, and occurred in the centuries following Noah's Flood
