West Lothian shale bings
Introduction
The photograph on this page of West Lothian shale bings by kim traynor as part of the Geograph project.
The Geograph project started in 2005 with the aim of publishing, organising and preserving representative images for every square kilometre of Great Britain, Ireland and the Isle of Man.
There are currently over 7.5m images from over 14,400 individuals and you can help contribute to the project by visiting https://www.geograph.org.uk
West Lothian shale bings
Image: © kim traynor Taken: 25 Jul 2012
The Albyn, Greendykes and Faucheldean shale bings with the outskirts of Broxburn in the foreground and the Firth of Forth and the Ochil Hills of Fife in the distance. They're a reminder of the world's first large-scale oil industry which came to dominate the area in the 19th century, thanks to the pioneering oil extraction techniques of Glasgow-born chemist James Young, aka "Paraffin Young". Some of the bings have gradually disappeared over the past two decades as the shale has been quarried mainly for road surfacing. It was also used in the past for blaes tennis courts which have been fast disappearing in favour of all-weather surfaces. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Young_(Scottish_chemist) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shale_oil
Images are licensed for reuse under creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0
Image Location
Latitude
55.941714
Longitude
-3.454803