The Rocks of Lewis

While walking on the Isle of Lewis it is hard to ignore the rocks that line the shores of the beaches around the island.  The layers of colours are amazing and they are some of the oldest rock formations in the world, some are over 3 billion years old, and are known as Lewisian Gneiss.

The rocks are beautifully marbled with layers of browns, greys, purples and pinks.  The patterns and colours were hard to ignore as we walked along the sand and the sizes varied from chips to boulders to whole cliff faces, it was an amazing sight. 

The Lewisian Gneiss page on the Virtual Hebrides website gives a more detailed background: Lewisian Gneiss is metamorphic, in that volcanic heat and pressure has altered its structure somewhat, originally the rocks were like granite which changed as the Earth's crust became molten and they solidified, which is the reason you can see great variations in the way the layers are displayed, ranging from the white, to pale grey and even then the really dark grey.

The rock is mainly grey with coarse bands of white and dark minerals through it. The pale bands contain quartz and feldspar, whilst the darker bands are dense minerals , like maybe biotite mica and hornblend.

For more information on the Lewisian Gneiss, visit the Virtual Hebrides website page HERE

Images taken on a Fujifilm X-T1 or X-Pro1 using either a Fujinon XF10-24mm f4R OIS or Fujinon XF18mm f2R or Fujinon XF14mm f2.8R

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