Colonsay

Colonsay (Scottish Gaelic: Colbhasa) is an island in the Inner Hebrides of Scotland, located north of Islay and south of Mull. The ancestral home of Clan Macfie and the Colonsay branch of Clan MacNeil, it is in the council area of Argyll and Bute and has an area of 4,074 hectares (15.7 sq mi). Aligned on a south-west to north-east axis, it measures 8 miles (13 km) in length and reaches 3 miles (4.8 km) at its widest point.

Geography and geology

Although Colonsay appears bare and somewhat forbidding on approach from the sea, its landscape is varied, with some sandy beaches, and a sheltered and fertile interior. It is linked by a tidal causeway (called The Strand) to Oronsay. The highest point on the island is Carnan Eoin, 143 metres above sea level.

The Colonsay Group, which takes its name from the island, is an estimated 5,000 m thick sequence of mildy metamorphosed Neoproterozoic sedimentary rocks that also outcrop on the islands of Islay and Oronsay and the surrounding seabed. The sequence has been correlated with the Grampian Group, the oldest part of the Dalradian Supergroup.

Colonsay (disambiguation)

Colonsay may refer to: