How Deep is Your Loch?

(not a talk about the Bee Gees)

(ahem)

Philip Taylor | @ScienceAndMaps

I know your eyes in the morning sun

I feel you touch me in the pouring rain

And the moment that you wander far from me

I shout: “What’s the highest point in the UK?”

What’s the lowest (natural) point

in the UK?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-36024638

Murray & Pullar, 1902

“Despite acknowledging the value of such a survey, the

response from the Treasury indicated that the work was

not in the interests of navigation and so fell outwith the

functions of the Admiralty, whilst the Ordnance Survey

would confine its attentions to dry land. As Murray

concluded, 'we were led to take up this self-imposed task

because ... there was no hope of the work being

undertaken by any Government Department’ ”

Murray & Pullar, 1910 vol. 1, p. 4.

“The accuracy of the soundings have generally been

confirmed by later 20th century technology. For

example, the Loch Ness bathymetric and seismic

survey in 1992 using sonar measurements recorded

a depth of 786 feet, only 32 feet more than the

Bathymetrical Survey.”

Young, I & Shine, A.J., 'Loch Ness bathymetric and seismic survey',

The Scottish Naturalist 105 (1993), 23-43.

1078 points…

https://bost.ocks.org/mike/simplify/

contours.org.uk/bathymetry

These methods have given a new measure of mean

depth (102m, previously 87m), and a new measure of

volume (2.74km3, previously 2.32km3).

That additional volume is enough to cover

the personal use of every person

in Scotland for 1.5 years.

Philip Taylor | @ScienceAndMaps