Skerry
Encyclopedia
Reef
In nautical terminology, a reef is a rock, sandbar, or other feature lying beneath the surface of the water ....
. A skerry can also be called a low sea stack.
The term skerry is derived from the Old Norse
Old Norse
Old Norse is a North Germanic language that was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and inhabitants of their overseas settlements during the Viking Age, until about 1300....
sker, which means a rock in the sea. The Old Norse term sker was brought into the English language
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
via the Scots language
Scots language
Scots is the Germanic language variety spoken in Lowland Scotland and parts of Ulster . It is sometimes called Lowland Scots to distinguish it from Scottish Gaelic, the Celtic language variety spoken in most of the western Highlands and in the Hebrides.Since there are no universally accepted...
word which is spelled skerrie or skerry. It is a cognate
Cognate
In linguistics, cognates are words that have a common etymological origin. This learned term derives from the Latin cognatus . Cognates within the same language are called doublets. Strictly speaking, loanwords from another language are usually not meant by the term, e.g...
of the Scandinavian languages' words for skerry – Icelandic
Icelandic language
Icelandic is a North Germanic language, the main language of Iceland. Its closest relative is Faroese.Icelandic is an Indo-European language belonging to the North Germanic or Nordic branch of the Germanic languages. Historically, it was the westernmost of the Indo-European languages prior to the...
, Faroese
Faroese language
Faroese , is an Insular Nordic language spoken by 48,000 people in the Faroe Islands and about 25,000 Faroese people in Denmark and elsewhere...
: sker, Danish
Danish language
Danish is a North Germanic language spoken by around six million people, principally in the country of Denmark. It is also spoken by 50,000 Germans of Danish ethnicity in the northern parts of Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, where it holds the status of minority language...
: skær, Swedish
Swedish language
Swedish is a North Germanic language, spoken by approximately 10 million people, predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along its coast and on the Åland islands. It is largely mutually intelligible with Norwegian and Danish...
: skär, Norwegian
Norwegian language
Norwegian is a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Norway, where it is the official language. Together with Swedish and Danish, Norwegian forms a continuum of more or less mutually intelligible local and regional variants .These Scandinavian languages together with the Faroese language...
: skjær / skjer, German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
: Schäre, Finnish
Finnish language
Finnish is the language spoken by the majority of the population in Finland Primarily for use by restaurant menus and by ethnic Finns outside Finland. It is one of the two official languages of Finland and an official minority language in Sweden. In Sweden, both standard Finnish and Meänkieli, a...
"kari", Estonian
Estonian language
Estonian is the official language of Estonia, spoken by about 1.1 million people in Estonia and tens of thousands in various émigré communities...
: skäär and Latvian
Latvian language
Latvian is the official state language of Latvia. It is also sometimes referred to as Lettish. There are about 1.4 million native Latvian speakers in Latvia and about 150,000 abroad. The Latvian language has a relatively large number of non-native speakers, atypical for a small language...
: šēra. In Scottish Gaelic, it appears as sgeir, e.g. Sula Sgeir
Sula Sgeir
Sula Sgeir is a small, uninhabited Scottish island in the North Atlantic, west of North Rona...
, in Irish
Irish language
Irish , also known as Irish Gaelic, is a Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family, originating in Ireland and historically spoken by the Irish people. Irish is now spoken as a first language by a minority of Irish people, as well as being a second language of a larger proportion of...
as sceir, and in Manx
Manx language
Manx , also known as Manx Gaelic, and as the Manks language, is a Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family, historically spoken by the Manx people. Only a small minority of the Island's population is fluent in the language, but a larger minority has some knowledge of it...
as skeyr. The word is also probably related to the Italian word scoglio, sharing the same meaning.
Formation
Skerries are most commonly formed at the outlet of fjordFjord
Geologically, a fjord is a long, narrow inlet with steep sides or cliffs, created in a valley carved by glacial activity.-Formation:A fjord is formed when a glacier cuts a U-shaped valley by abrasion of the surrounding bedrock. Glacial melting is accompanied by rebound of Earth's crust as the ice...
s where submerged glacially formed valleys at right angles to the coast join with other cross valleys in a complex array. In some places near the seaward margins of fjorded areas, the ice-scoured channels are so numerous and varied in direction that the rocky coast is divided into thousands of island blocks, some large and mountainous while others merely rocky points or rock reef
Reef
In nautical terminology, a reef is a rock, sandbar, or other feature lying beneath the surface of the water ....
s, menacing navigation.
Examples
The island fringe of NorwayNorway
Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...
is such a group of glacially formed skerries (called a skjærgård); many of the cross fjords are so arranged that they parallel the coast and provide a protected channel behind an almost unbroken succession of mountainous islands and skerries. By this channel one can travel through a protected passage almost the entire 1,600 km route from Stavanger
Stavanger
Stavanger is a city and municipality in the county of Rogaland, Norway.Stavanger municipality has a population of 126,469. There are 197,852 people living in the Stavanger conurbation, making Stavanger the fourth largest city, but the third largest urban area, in Norway...
to North Cape
North Cape, Norway
North Cape is a cape on the island of Magerøya in Northern Norway, in the municipality of Nordkapp. Its 307 m high, steep cliff is often referred to as the northernmost point of Europe, located at , 2102.3 km from the North Pole. However, the neighbouring point Knivskjellodden is actually...
, Norway. The Blindleia
Blindleia
Blindleia is an long inland waterway in the municipality of Lillesand in Aust-Agder county, Norway. It starts in the Gamle Hellesund or Ulvøysund areas in southern Høvåg in the southwest and it continues northeast past the city of Lillesand. It is a salt water fjord passage that is protected...
is a skerry-protected waterway that starts near Kristiansand
Kristiansand
-History:As indicated by archeological findings in the city, the Kristiansand area has been settled at least since 400 AD. A royal farm is known to have been situated on Oddernes as early as 800, and the first church was built around 1040...
in southern Norway
Norway
Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...
, and continues past Lillesand
Lillesand
is a town and municipality in Aust-Agder county, Norway. It is part of the traditional district of Sørlandet. The administrative center of the municipality is the town of Lillesand.-General information:...
.
The “inside passage
Inside Passage
The Inside Passage is a coastal route for oceangoing vessels along a network of passages which weave through the islands on the Pacific coast of North America. The route extends from southeastern Alaska, in the United States, through western British Columbia, in Canada, to northwestern Washington...
” provides a similar route from Seattle, Washington to Skagway, Alaska. Yet another such skerry-protected passage extends from the Straits of Magellan north for 800 km (497.1 mi).
The Swedish
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
coast along Bohuslän
Bohuslän
' is a Swedish traditional province, or landskap, situated in Götaland on the northernmost part of the country's west coast. It is bordered by Dalsland to the northeast, Västergötland to the southeast, the Skagerrak arm of the North Sea to the west, and the county of Østfold in Norway to the north...
is likewise guarded by skerries. Even the east coast of Sweden, in the Baltic sea has many big skärgårdar (archipelagos), notably Stockholm archipelago
Stockholm archipelago
The Stockholm archipelago is the largest archipelago of Sweden, and one of the largest archipelagos of the Baltic Sea.-Geography:The archipelago extends from Stockholm roughly 60 kilometers to the east...
- Stockholms skärgård - skjærgård.
The southwestern coast of Finland
Finland
Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...
also has a great many skerries; so many, in fact, that they form an archipelago
Archipelago Sea
Archipelago Sea is a part of the Baltic Sea between the Gulf of Bothnia, the Gulf of Finland and the Sea of Åland, within Finnish territorial waters...
. This area is experiencing post-glacial uplift that connects the rising islands as they break sea level, revealing till deposits and eventually clay bottoms. The skerries exist as small rocky islands before uplift of adjacent terrain changes the classification of this landform into a tombolo
Tombolo
A tombolo, from the Italian tombolo, derived from the Latin tumulus, meaning 'mound,' and sometimes translated as ayre , is a deposition landform in which an island is attached to the mainland by a narrow piece of land such as a spit or bar. Once attached, the island is then known as a tied island...
.
In the Russian Federation the best examples are the Minina Skerries
Minina Skerries
The Minina Skerries are located in the Kara Sea, in the northwestern shores of Siberia. They stretch between the Mikhailov Peninsula and the mouths of the river Pyasina...
, located in the Kara Sea
Kara Sea
The Kara Sea is part of the Arctic Ocean north of Siberia. It is separated from the Barents Sea to the west by the Kara Strait and Novaya Zemlya, and the Laptev Sea to the east by the Severnaya Zemlya....
, in the western shores of the Taymyr Peninsula
Taymyr Peninsula
The Taymyr Peninsula is a peninsula in the Far North of Russia, in the Siberian Federal District, that forms the northernmost part of mainland Eurasia and Asia...
, and the Sumsky Skerries
Sumsky Skerries
The Sumsky Skerries are an extensive cluster of islands, islets and shoals in the White Sea. They are located in the Onega Bay, close to its southern shore....
(Sumskiye Shkhery) 64°24′N 35°30′E, located in the White Sea
White Sea
The White Sea is a southern inlet of the Barents Sea located on the northwest coast of Russia. It is surrounded by Karelia to the west, the Kola Peninsula to the north, and the Kanin Peninsula to the northeast. The whole of the White Sea is under Russian sovereignty and considered to be part of...
.
The United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
has a large number of skerries including Staple Island
Staple Island
Staple Island is a small rocky island that is one of the outer Farne Islands in Northumberland, England. Staple iIsland is known for its prolific breeding colonies of Atlantic Puffins, Razorbills and Kittiwakes. This uninhabited island has a history associated with the early monastic settlement...
(an Outer Farne Island
Farne Islands
The Farne Islands are a group of islands off the coast of Northumberland, England. There are between 15 and 20 or more islands depending on the state of the tide. They are scattered about 2.5–7.5 km distant from the mainland, divided into two groups, the Inner Group and the Outer Group...
) in England, a small rocky outcrop near the Fowlsheugh
Fowlsheugh
Fowlsheugh is a coastal nature reserve in Kincardineshire, northeast Scotland, known for its seventy metre high cliff formations and habitat supporting prolific seabird nesting colonies. Designated as a Site of Special Scientific Interest by Scottish Natural Heritage, the property is owned by the...
in northeast Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
and numerous reefs in the Hebrides
Hebrides
The Hebrides comprise a widespread and diverse archipelago off the west coast of Scotland. There are two main groups: the Inner and Outer Hebrides. These islands have a long history of occupation dating back to the Mesolithic and the culture of the residents has been affected by the successive...
such as Dubh Artach
Dubh Artach
Dubh Artach is a remote skerry of basalt rock off the west coast of Scotland lying west of Colonsay and south-west of the Ross of Mull.A lighthouse designed by Thomas Stevenson with a tower height of was erected between 1867 and 1872 with a shore station constructed on the isle of Erraid...
and Skerryvore
Skerryvore
Skerryvore is a remote reef that lies off the west coast of Scotland, 12 miles south west of the island of Tiree...
.
The most southerly skerries are perhaps the Skrap Skerries
Skrap Skerries
Skrap Skerries are two small groups of islands and rocks lying midway between Cape George and Barff Point, close off the north coast of South Georgia. The present name, which dates back to about 1930, derives from the Norwegian term "skrapskjaer" or "skrapskjar" formerly used for these...
off South Georgia.
For a list of the various islands and island groups with skerry or skerries as part of their name, see: The Skerries.