Open AccessThe parallel roads of Glen Roy and adjacent glens, Scotland
Author(s) -
SISSONS J. BRIAN
Publication year - 1978
Publication title -
boreas
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.95
H-Index - 74
eISSN - 1502-3885
pISSN - 0300-9483
DOI - 10.1111/j.1502-3885.1978.tb00281.x
Subject(s) - geology , fetch , erosion , fluvial , deposition (geology) , front (military) , frost weathering , geomorphology , volume (thermodynamics) , physical geography , hydrology (agriculture) , geotechnical engineering , oceanography , geography , soil science , sediment , physics , structural basin , quantum mechanics , soil water
The width and angle of outward slope of the parallel roads of glens Roy, Gloy and Spean have been measured at 787 points and road volume has been approximately determined at 236 points. Analyses of the measurements show that road widths are highly correlated inversely with the slopes of the hill sides on which they occur. Road volume is unrelated to hillside slope or to geology, but is highly correlated with length of fetch from south‐west. Locally the roads resulted from fluvial (including fluvioglacial) depostion, but normally they are the result of erosion at the back and deposition at the front. It is maintained that the roads were not formed only by wave action but also by powerful frost action in the critical environment of the slightly varying lake level. It is inferred that each road was at first formed extremely quickly and, thereafter, developed very slowly