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Siccar Point is a rocky promontory in the county of Berwickshire on the east coast of Scotland. It is famous in the history of geology for Hutton's Unconformity found in 1788, which James Hutton regarded as conclusive proof of his uniformitarian theory of geological development.

Siccar Point
The point seen from the west
Siccar Point Location in the Scottish Borders
Coordinates: 55°55′54″N 2°18′03″W

History

Siccar Point was the site of a dun, or small hill fort, in the territory of the ancient Britons.

Siccar Point is now in the parish of Cockburnspath but was formerly in the parish of Old Cambus, from which the ancient parish church of St Helen's Chapel survives as a ruin about one kilometre to the west of the point. The church is built in a Romanesque style, in a mixture of Old Red Sandstone believed to have been quarried from the nearby Greenheugh Bay^{[citation needed]} and of the greywacke rock also used in the drystone dyke forming the field boundaries. It is likely that the medieval village of Old Cambus was nearer to Siccar Point than the extant hamlet of Old Cambus.

To the south of the point twentieth-century quarrying for greywacke to be used as roadstone left a hollow named Old Cambus Quarry which is now occupied by a vegetable distribution warehouse complex.[1]

Hutton's Unconformity

Siccar Point is notable in the history of geology as a result of a boat trip in 1788 in which geologist James Hutton observed the angular unconformity of the point.[2] He wrote later that the evidence of the rocks provided conclusive proof of the uniformitarian theory of geological development; that is, that the natural laws and processes which operate in the universe have never changed and apply everywhere. In respect of its great importance to the development of geoscience, this locality was included by the International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS) as the first of 100 'geological heritage sites' around the world in a listing published in October 2022.[3]

See also

• List of places in the Scottish Borders
• List of places in Scotland

References

External links

• James Hutton's account of his visit to Siccar Point in Berwickshire^{[permanent dead link]}
• John Playfair's historic remarks upon seeing Siccar Point, in vol. V, pt. III, 1805, Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.
• Research Casting International hung on scaffolding off the cliffs at Siccar Point, painting a large section of the rocks with thick liquid latex (photo) to fabricate an exhibit for the Gottesman Hall of Planet Earth, American Museum of Natural History.
• Map sources for Siccar Point

На других языках

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- [en] Siccar Point

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[es] Siccar Point

Siccar Point es un entrante rocoso en el mar del Norte, en el condado de Berwickshire en la costa este de Escocia (Reino Unido). Es famoso en la historia de la geología porque en él James Hutton encontró en 1788 la discordancia que más tarde recibiría el nombre del descubridor, discordancia de Hutton, lo que el geólogo de la Ilustración escocesa consideró una prueba concluyente de su teoría uniformista de la evolución geológica.

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[it] Siccar Point

Siccar Point è un promontorio roccioso nella contea Berwickshire situato nella costa orientale della Scozia, diventato famoso nella storia della geologia.

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