Maggie's Leap
I was looking through a book last night, it was a collection of WA Green's photos of the Mournes. He had a photo of Maggie's Leap near the Bloody Bridge car park on the road to Annalong out of Newcastle.
There is a picture and story here:
http://www.ulsterplacenames.org/legends_of_the_landscape.htm
I always wondered about the name, the link above says the dyke was named after a girl called Maggie who leapt the gap, carrying a basket of eggs, as she was fleeing soldiers.
The book had another more pleasing story, that she leapt the gap carring eggs, as she was being chased by a suitor, neither she nor any of the eggs were harmed. Either way it was an impressive jump, the leap was over 10 feet.
I am not sure about the geology, hopefully beowulf will be let me know. My GCSE geology tells me that the rock was weak around the hard granite and the sea erroded it, as to what the rock that was erroded is I have no idea.
There was also a picture of the Northern Counties Hotel, the caption read that the hotel was used to house Campbell College pupils during the second World War.
Comments
The rocks along the coast are Silurian shales and greywackes, the same as you get along most of the North Down coast except a little baked by the Mourne granites. There is a ring dyke there, it bascically circles 3/4 of the mourne complex - but it's pointing in the wrong direction to Maggies Leap. So my guess is that the weakness that formed Maggie's Leap was a fault in the Silurian rocks, taken advantage of by the sea. Did I mention my disertation was on the Silurian geology of North Down? Well, let me start by saying...
Hey, where'd everybody go?
Posted by: Stephen | April 30, 2003 12:27 PM
BTW, the granite (Feldaspathic) starts about 1km up the Bloody Bridge River...
Posted by: Stephen | April 30, 2003 12:28 PM
Wow.. Mr. Stuart is a rock geek. Cool :)
Posted by: SWM | April 30, 2003 12:54 PM
Rock geek = cool ??
I guess that's a relative thing coming from a computer geek, being at the top of the geek list. Remember, every step down is a step towards the Fonze. Try using XP instead of Linux, Outlook instead of Mutt - soon you too will be clicking your fingers and saying "aaay"
Posted by: Stephen | April 30, 2003 01:05 PM
That's an impressive answer Stephen, well done. By the way what rock would it have been that fizzed when you dropped Hydrochloric Acid on it?
Posted by: jaffs | April 30, 2003 01:10 PM
Anything with CaCO3 in it, calcium carbonate, so any type of limestone for a starter. What colour was it and could you see individual grains?
Posted by: Stephen | April 30, 2003 01:28 PM
Galena is ringing a bell, it was a solid black mineral, and you couldn't see any grains, if my memory serves me correctly. It also smelt of rotting eggs when the acid was added.
Posted by: jaffs | April 30, 2003 02:04 PM
Galena isn't a rock that's why I plumped for limestone and why you won't see any grains. It doesn't really effervesce (fizz) either but does as you say give off rotten egg odour (hydrogen sulfide). It's called the acid test, a way of determining which mineral is which. Carbonates effervesce, sulfides stink.
;)
Posted by: Stephen | April 30, 2003 03:23 PM
I can't tell you how much I'm enjoying this. I'm going to start a whole new category on my blog - 'geology pics from north down' accompanied by long explanations of the formations. I just have to get a scanner that works under WinNT...
Posted by: Stephen | April 30, 2003 03:24 PM
Geology Rocks :)
Posted by: SWM | April 30, 2003 04:45 PM