3 November 2016
A “triple tombolo” in northern Shetland
Posted by Callan Bentley
We’ve taken a look already at an exemplary tombolo from Shetland. Today, I’m dialing up the tombolosity of the blog with a Triple Feature:
Click to make much larger (8000 pixels wide)
If you look closely here, you’ll see that only the rightmost bar fully connects the two islands. It’s the only true tombolo, sensu stricto, at this site. The other two perhaps deserve another name, though I’m not sure what that would be… bayhead and baymouth bars, perhaps? (Though the “bay” is in fact defined by the tombolo, so that seems problematic.)
Here’s the place in Google Maps. It’s in the north of Mainland Shetland, just shy of the ferry to Yell:
Callan Bentley is Associate Professor of Geology at Piedmont Virginia Community College in Charlottesville, Virginia. He is a Fellow of the Geological Society of America. For his work on this blog, the National Association of Geoscience Teachers recognized him with the James Shea Award. He has also won the Outstanding Faculty Award from the State Council on Higher Education in Virginia, and the Biggs Award for Excellence in Geoscience Teaching from the Geoscience Education Division of the Geological Society of America. In previous years, Callan served as a contributing editor at EARTH magazine, President of the Geological Society of Washington and President the Geo2YC division of NAGT.