Lossiemouth - Geography, Geology and Wildlife

Geography, Geology and Wildlife

The town is locatedon the most northerly point of the south coast of the Moray Firth, at the mouth of the River Lossie. To the west of the town are a sandy beach, golf links and the Royal Air Force station, RAF Lossiemouth. Lossie Forest is a large pine forest that starts on the town's south-east boundary and the river splits it into two sections. The south side of the town is joined by the fertile plains of the Laich o' Moray.

Lossiemouth Beach is a large strip of dunes separated from the rest of the town by the River Lossie, creating a useful sheltered expanse of water. The town looks down onto this natural harbour with a plain promenade street from which there is a long wooden footbridge leading onto the sands. Ringed plover, grey heron, black-headed gull, oystercatcher, curlew, mallard and other waders feed under the bridge and are easy to watch from the street, and there are vast numbers of water birds in the more rural area further east.

A large part of the town is built on the Coulard Hill which consists of pale grey and yellow sandstones and with these is associated a cherty and calcareous band, known as 'the cherty rock of Stotfield' . This rock is a form of silica that contains micro-crystalline quartz. Also in the calcareous band of the Stotfield rock there is limestone with nodular masses of flint, crystals of galena (lead ore) and iron pyrites. The quarry on the east side of the town that produced the stone for the building of Branderburgh produced the largest variety and total numbers of fossil reptiles from the late Triassic Period to have been found in the UK. This was a total of eight species and 97 individuals; five of the species are unique to Lossiemouth, one of which is an early form of dinosaur. This quarry is ranked as one of Britain's most important fossil bearing locations of this period.