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Situated on the side of a hill (Bishophill 1512ft). Good footwear recommended. Lot of Sheep on hills. Oh! and watch out for the Big White Birds that buzz you!
During the last two million years, Scotland was plunged into a series of ice ages. During this period, Fife and Tayside were buried on several occasions under Greenland-like ice sheets up to one kilometre in thickness. The last great ice age lasted from about 27,000 to 13,000 years ago, although there was another cold snap 11,000 to 10,000 years ago when this area again froze but was not covered by an ice sheet.
The last great ice sheet started to form about 27,000 years ago on Rannoch Moor and in the carries of the Highlands. Ice streams overwhelmed the lower ground of Fife and Angus around Loch Leven which is to the west of Carlin Maggie . It also buried the Ochils and Sidlaws and even the mighty Highlands. The ice flowed eastwards from the Highlands across Fife and Tayside. It scoured the landscape like emery paper using the rock debris incorporated within the lower layers of ice as it advanced. Some debris remains today as ‘foreign’ stones called erratics.
Crag-and-tail features were fashioned from harder rock such as the volcanic plug of East Lomond which is to the east of Maggie where the eastern lee slopes of the hill were protected from erosion. The ice left behind its ground moraine of till or boulder clay, a hard melange of stones and boulders in a matrix of clay, silt and sand which covers much of the lowland landscape.
As the climate became warmer, the ice sheet receded. Eventually the climate became less arctic, and water liberated from the ice flowed copiously cutting meltwater channels beneath and at the margins of the ice.
Sediment was also deposited in tunnels in the ice and along crevasses, so when the ice melted completely, winding ridges called eskers emerged. Good examples are seen at Lindores Loch, and Loch Leven just to the west of Maggie. Loch Leven marks the site where a large chunk of ice became abandoned in the outwash of sand and gravel. The ice then melted to form a hollow called a kettlehole. The original land surface was flat, but subsided when ice melted. The hollow then filled with water to form a loch.
Weathering and erosion have also left their mark on the landscape. During the cold snap 11,000 to 10,000 years ago, organic soils were stripped away and the rocks and subsoils opened up to freeze/thaw effects. Movement of the impressive landslides at Craig Rossie was triggered by these conditions, where the scarp face cut in lava slipped along a series of rotational failure surfaces. At other locations, notably on the Lomond Hills, rock has been broken up by weathering and now forms angular blocks in a scree slope.
One of the most graceful landmarks in the Lomond Hills is the rock column known as Carlin (witch) Maggie below Bishop Hill. On the escarpment of the sill, this stack has been left isolated by the toppling of the adjacent jointed columns of dolerite. A popular local rock-climb, she has already lost her tourie (pom-pom) off the top. When gravity will destroy the rest we can only speculate.
Nearby at N 56° 13.180 W 003° 18.725 Clatteringwell Quarry The rocks are full of Crinoid fossils.
To log this Earthcache.
1. A picture of Carlin Maggie with your GPS.
2. What is the Distance in Metres from the rock face to the Column.
3. What is the Bearing to the Trig Point at Wester Balgeddie
Additional Hints
(No hints available.)