3 The Geodiversity of West Lothian

3.1 Geological background

West Lothian's geodiversity is typical of much of the Midland Valley, though older rocks from the Silurian and Devonian geological time periods seen elsewhere are not present at surface — rocks from the Carboniferous time period comprise the entire bedrock surface area of West Lothian (see (Figure 1)A for geological column). This does not necessarily lead to low geodiversity as they comprise a wide variety of rock types including oil-shale, limestone, sandstone and dolerite, which demonstrate a wide range of geological processes and structures. Nearly 92% of this bedrock is covered by a variety of glacial deposits; both these deposits and the underlying bedrock have been sculpted into an array of landforms. A detailed account of the bedrock geology of West Lothian can be found in Appendix 3.

3.1.1 Geological history

West Lothian lies in the Midland Valley of Scotland between the Highland Boundary Fault to the north and the Southern Upland Fault to the south. The Midland Valley is considered to be a displaced 'terrane' — a north-east to south-west-orientated sedimentary basin emplaced in its present relationship with the Highlands and Southern Uplands by large-scale horizontal fault movement (strike-slip) during the end-Silurian to mid-Devonian times.

The nature of the basement rocks in the Midland Valley is known only from indirect evidence. Geophysical studies indicate that a metamorphic basement lies at a depth of between 7 and 9 km. The basement is 20 to 25 km thick and the base of the crust is at a depth of about 33 km. The composition of the basement is indicated by the occurrence of metamorphic rocks carried to the surface as exotic fragments (xenoliths) in volcanic vents.

The Carboniferous of West Lothian comprises both sedimentary and igneous rocks. Geologists have classified the sedimentary and extrusive igneous rocks into five main groups (Figure 1)B, (Figure 2). The sedimentary rocks are divided by age, from the oldest to youngest the groups are:

1. Inverclyde Group
2. Strathclyde Group
3. Bathgate Group
4. Clackmannan Group
5. Coal Measures (Scotland) Group

These groups are subdivided further into formations See (Figure 1)B.

The three groups of intrusive rocks are divided by origins and compositions. (Figure 1)A, (Figure 2):

1. Volcanic Vents and Plugs
2. Alkali-dolerite sills
3. Quartz-dolerite sills and dykes

Subaerial volcanic activity was widespread in the Midland Valley in Lower Carboniferous times. Eruption of volcanic rocks in the east ceased sometime in the Viséan, but persisted in the west well into the Namurian (Figure 1).

The sedimentary strata consist principally of sandstones and mudstones with relatively minor proportions of limestone, coal and oil-shale. They were deposited as part of an extensive fluviodeltaic system which occupied most of north-west Europe during the Carboniferous Period. Sediment was carried from Caledonian mountains to the north and deposited at or near sea level in a differentially subsiding basin. Early Carboniferous strata were deposited, in part at least, under lagoonal conditions and the strata include seams of oil-shale. Cyclic sedimentation, including the deposition of seams of economically valuable coal, lasted from the Viséan to the late Carboniferous.

Periodic marine incursions brought about the deposition of thin but widespread limestones mainly in the late-Viséan Lower Limestone Formation and in the Namurian Upper Limestone Formation. In the area of the Bathgate Hills, marine limestones were deposited fringing volcanic islands. An unusual fauna has recently been recovered from one of the associated nonmarine limestones which included possibly one of the world's earliest known reptiles, amphibians and various terrestrial invertebrates. A period of uplift and erosion in the Highland High to the north and within the Midland Valley brought about mainly fluvial deposition during late-Namurian Passage Formation times, temporarily replacing the fluviodeltaic processes. Marine incursions were brief and largely confined to the lower part of the formation.

Two episodes of basaltic intrusion are known in the district. Most of the intrusive igneous rocks are quartz-dolerites which occur as east-west dykes and sills. They are of late-Carboniferous age. Alkali-dolerite sills, probably of contemporaneous in age to Viséan and Namurian volcanic rocks, are present. After deposition of the Carboniferous, the strata were folded to form the Falkirk-Stane Syncline. Faulting took place on east-west trending faults.

There is no evidence of the interval between Carboniferous times and the Quaternary preserved in West Lothian. During the Quaternary the entire region was overwhelmed by glaciers, on more than one occasion. The last widespread glaciation in Great Britain was the Main Late Devensian, during which the ice reached its maximum extent between 18,000 and 22,000 years ago. The Main Late Devensian ice sheet was less extensive than earlier glaciations, but it still covered much of Britain, stretching as far south as Bristol Channel (Figure 3). In the mountainous source regions of Scotland, Wales and Northern England, erosional processes dominated as ice carved out the deep corries and U-shaped valleys we associate with those areas today. In lower lying areas, such as that occupied by present-day West Lothian, depositional processes were more dominant releasing thick blankets of till from beneath the ice (Figure 4). Where ice flow was particularly fast, streamlining of the landscape occurred with the underlying terrain being shaped into a series of longitudinal landforms parallel to the direction of ice flow (Figure 10).

As climate warmed towards the end of the Main Late Devensian glaciation, meltwater from the retreating ice sheet laid down vast belts of sand and gravel along the major drainage pathways. The weight of the Main Late Devensian Ice Sheet depressed the earth's crust beneath it (a process known as isostatic depression). When the ice sheets melted, releasing water back in to the oceans, sea-level rapidly increased (glacio-eustatic sea-level rise). The depressed land, however, took a longer time to rebound after the removal of ice, allowing the sea to reach higher levels than today. Continued uplift has now elevated the shorelines from this period, so that today raised beach and estuarine clay deposits can be seen in the north-east of the district, bordering the Firth of Forth. Even now, 11,500 years after the final disappearance of ice in Britain, much of Scotland continues to rebound from the ice overburden. In parts of the Highlands uplift presently occurs at about 3 mm per year, while rates in West Lothian are around 1–2 mm per year.

Soils began forming in West Lothian after the retreat of the last ice sheet. Parent material for soil formation is predominantly glacial or periglacial in origin, mainly till with minor areas of glaciofluvial sand and gravel, stony drift (frost-shattered rock or local thin glacial material or solifluction sheets) and raised beach deposits. The predominant soil association (Figure 5) in West Lothian is Rowanhill (glacial till parent material); others include Hobkirk (drifts of soft red sandstone parent material), Darleith (drift from basaltic rock parent material) and Darvel (glaciofluvial sand and gravel parent materials). The other main soil classification used is that of sub-group — a diverse range are present in West Lothian (Figure 6). The main sub-groups present are non-calcareous gleys, peaty gleys, peaty podzols, peat, brown forest soils with gleying, brown forest soils.

Some of the geological process that formed the geodiversity of West Lothian are still active in the area today: mechanical and chemical weathering of rocks is ongoing; slope processes — debris flows may occur during very heavy rainfall, particularly on steep slopes; river erosion and deposition (see (Figure 161)); coastal erosion and sedimentation.

3.2 Use of geological resources

3.2.1 Mineral resources and extraction

West Lothian has a long history of mineral production. A wide range of products have been worked within the county and mining and related industries have had an impact on its character.

3.2.1.1 Coal

The majority of formerly economic coal seams occur in the Limestone Coal Formation and Lower Coal Measures (Figure 1), (Figure 2). Several seams exceed 1 m in thickness. A limited number of coals in the Upper Limestone Formation and the Passage Formation have also been exploited along with others such as the Hurlet Coal at the base of the Lower Limestone Formation and the Houston Coal in the West Lothian Oil-shale Formation. Deep (longwall) mining ceased with the closure of the Polkemmet Colliery in 1985. The most recent coal working in West Lothian has been restricted to licensed opencast mines which have concentrated on seams in the Coal Measures and Limestone Coal Formation. The largest opencast coal sites in the district have been located on the outcrop of the basal Coal Measures, where 'fireclay' and 'brickclay' have been extracted in addition to coal. Coal can be worked economically by opencast methods only where the ratio of coal to overburden is favourable. Past extraction of coal in shallow mines commonly used 'stoop and room' methods whereby only about half the coal was taken, the remainder serving as pillars to support the roof. Despite the practice of 'stooping' and

'stoop-splitting', that is, of robbing all or part of the coal pillars when mining was coming to an end, sufficient reserves can nevertheless remain in the pillars to justify opencast working. On a small scale, ground which has been affected by shallow stoop and room mining can be stabilised prior to construction, by working the coal opencast, the value of the coal recovered partly offsetting the excavation costs.

Coal is being extracted following granting of planning permission for the extraction of opencast coal and fireclay at the former Polkemmet Colliery site. Owing to the paucity of geodiversity sites within the Coal Measures of West Lothian (see section 3.4.6), development or extraction activities that exposed and allowed the preservation of representative Coal Measures sections would be a valuable addition to the geodiversity of the district.

3.2.1.2 Oil shale

West Lothian is unusual for the British Isles in having oil-shale seams that are thick and widely developed. The first plant in Britain to process mineral oil commercially, producing "Paraffin Oil", was set up in Bathgate in 1851, utilising a cannel coal known as Boghead Coal or Torbanite which occurred at the base of the Coal Measures over a small area on the Torbanehill Estate south-west of Bathgate. It gave an oil yield of 535 to 580 litres/tonne, but the deposit was exhausted within 12 years. Around the same time oil-shale was discovered in West Lothian and identified as a raw material suitable for the production of shale-oil and, in due course, replaced cannel coal in the retorting and refining processes. It was mined in the district from then until

1962. Although oil-shales are developed at over a dozen horizons within the West Lothian Oil- shale Formation (Strathclyde Group, (Figure 2)), three multiple, thick shales produced the bulk of the oil-shale mined: the Broxburn Shale, Dunnet Shale and Pumpherston Shale.

The oil-shale industry, which was situated very largely in West Lothian in the country between Cobbinshaw, Blackness and Dalmeny, with small outlying centres at Straiton and Carlops in Midlothian, reached its maximum productivity in the early years of the twentieth century with outputs of more than three million tons of oil-shale. It declined to 740,943 tons in 1950, produced at half a dozen mines and three opencast sites, of which three of the former and one of the latter were in the south of the West Lothian area near West Calder. By 1959, the workings were only in the Dunnet and Broxburn shales.

Retorting crude oil from oil-bearing shale resulted in a vast amount of waste. This waste was stored in large heaps, the red shale bings of West Lothian (Figure 26), (Figure 27), (Figure 28), (Figure 29), (Figure 30), (Figure 157), (Figure 158), (Figure 159). These bings are of considerable historical and social importance — two are currently protected as scheduled historical monuments (Five Sisters and Greendykes). Bings are significant landmarks in the general low-lying landscape of West Lothian and give a sense of community identity, particularly the unique Five Sisters Bing which features on the West Lothian Council logo. They also provide well used open spaces for recreation in an increasingly urbanised part of West Lothian, and form an important resource for education.

The survival of 19 oil-shale bings in West Lothian is largely due to the economic value of waste shale; it is used as hard-core for roads, footpaths and foundation material for buildings. This value saved the bings from reclamation during the 1970's and 80's. Several bings are being currently worked for hard-core, including Drumshoreland north and south, Clapperton and Niddry.

Oil-shale bings also make a major contribution to local biodiversity. Their unique physical and chemical structure provide a unique habitat, not found elsewhere in Britain or Western Europe, that hosts several nationally (UK) rare plant and animal species. They also play a major role in the success of 15 of the 45 West Lothian habitat indicator species. More than 350 plant species have been recorded on the Addiewell North Bing, which is also a Scottish Wildlife Trust Reserve.

3.2.1.3 Hydrocarbons

Natural gas and oil have their origin in organic-rich rocks which are common in the Carboniferous sedimentary sequence. Exploitable accumulations of oil and gas may be found where the rocks are folded and faulted to provide traps for the hydrocarbons. Within each trap, open-textured reservoir rocks are needed to hold the oil or gas. The Carboniferous rocks of the Livingston district include source rocks and reservoir rocks but the latter are probably too fractured to have retained significant quantities of oil or gas. There have been several reported occurrences of oil-impregnated sandstone and natural oil-seepages in the district and a deep oil- well was sunk unsuccessfully at West Calder between 1919 and 1921.

3.2.1.4 Limestone

Almost all the limestones that have been worked in the district occur within the Upper and Lower Limestone formations and in the West Lothian Oil-shale Formation. However, one of the limestones in the Ballagan Formation was quarried at Selms [NT 084 661]. Some of these limestones were quarried and mined underground for agricultural and industrial uses. North-east of Bathgate, the East Kirkton and West Kirkton (Hurlet) limestones have both been quarried on a small scale near Limefield [NS 988 694], and the latter also at Addiewell [NS 994 624]. The overlying Petershill (Hillhouse) Limestone is up to 18m thick and has been quarried and mined almost continuously along its outcrop between Glenbare Quarry [NS 985 690] and Craigmailing [NS 994 722]. Small quarries in the thinner Blackhall Limestone were at Whitebaulks [NT 008 747] and Tartraven [NT 006 725] for example. The Burdiehouse Limestone at the base of the Hopetoun Member was quarried extensively along its irregular outcrop between Abercorn and Newton. Smaller quarries occur elsewhere along its extensive outcrop. In the Upper Limestone Formation, the Calmy Limestone has been mined in Carribber Glen [NS 969 752], and quarried near Leven Seat [NS 946 576]. The Castlecary Limestone was formerly mined beneath Bowden Hill [NS 977 747], at Standhill [NS 968 673], near Longridge [NS 961 621] and at Leven Seat where limestone quarrying then mining lasted almost 200 years, before terminating in 1900. The Castlecary Limestone was the most extensively worked in the district, probably owing to its reputation for producing excellent lime.

There are currently no active limestone quarries in the county, but a number of disused quarries provide some of the most important, and in one case unique, sites at which certain rock units may be seen. They contribute greatly to the area's geodiversity.

3.2.1.5 Fireclay and shale for brickmaking

In the neighbourhood of Winchburgh and East Calder old small brickworks gave place to large works at Winchburgh, Camps and Ecclesmachan where 'blaes' and 'boulder-clay' (till) were excavated and mixed, but these long since ceased working. Passage Formation strata, which include the most valuable refractory fireclays in the United Kingdom, crop out widely around the rim of the Central Coalfield syncline, and underlie much of the district. Fireclays occur principally near the top and bottom of the Passage Formation and throughout much of the Lower Coal Measures.

The Glenboig Lower and Upper Fireclays of the Passage Formation, because of their high alumina content, were economically the most important. They are thought to be overbank deposits of a meandering river system, and are thus not true seatclays as they are not associated with coals. They were mined initially along the western outcrop of the Central Coalfield, but latterly the industry concentrated on the eastern outcrop where the quality was found to be better; a total of 12 mines were located between Birkhill near Linlithgow and Leven Seat, with the Ballencrieff Mine [NS 964 695] being the last to close in 1985.

Fireclays associated with coal seams belonging to the Lower Coal Measures, have also been mined throughout the district around Armadale. Latterly, fireclay production has been confined to a number of opencast coal sites located within the outcrop of the Lower Coal Measures where it was extracted in conjunction with coal.

3.2.1.6 Sandstone

Sandstone occurs in thick beds throughout the Carboniferous sequence of West Lothian and in the past considerable quantities of freestone was quarried for use in construction. Many of Edinburgh's buildings erected before the 20th century owe their character principally to the sandstone from which they were constructed. West Lothian quarries provided sandstone for a number of these; examples include the Bank of Scotland, the National Gallery on the Mound and Daniel Stewart's and Melville College (Binny Quarry). Active in the 18th and 19th centuries, the quarries are all long-since disused and mostly filled in. Most of West Lothian's historic buildings were also contructed from local stone (see 3.2.2).

The main beds that provided high quality sandstone were the Binny Sandstone and the Dunnet Sandstone in the middle of the West Lothian Oil-shale Formation. The most important quarries in the Binny Sandstone were at Binny; others were at Cockmuir, Craigton, Hermand, Hopetoun White and Humbie (Figure 7). The only quarry in the Dunnet Sandstone was Hopetoun Obelisk, although the sandstone is thought to be extensively developed in the Livingston area. Other sandstones have been quarried locally.

Certain sandstones of the Passage Formation are typically soft, friable, open-textured and are composed predominantly of quartz. Although the outcrop of the Passage Formation is extensive in the district, it is commonly concealed by superficial deposits. Silica sand is produced from one quarry located at Leven Seat, where sandstone production has continued for over 70 years. The iron oxide content of the sandstone precludes its use for most types of glass manufacture, though recent exploration at Levenseat Quarry indicates some sandstone of glass-making quality may be present. It is not known whether purer sandstone, suitable for colourless glass manufacture, occurs elsewhere in the district.

Although sandstone is not extracted for building stone within West Lothian at the moment, sandstone quarries are being opened up in adjacent districts. The Sir Walter Scott Monument in Edinburgh was recently repaired by 'snatch' quarrying at Binny. Sections can still be seen in some of the ancient quarries and are valuable both as geological sections in their own right and as a link to the built heritage of the region. Some stone quarries offer the potential to be re- opened as a resource for repairs and conservation work.

3.2.1.7 Metalliferous minerals

The district has limited occurrences of economic metalliferous minerals. The ironstone industry of West Lothian was represented for example by furnaces operated at Causewayend [NS 961 760] beside the Union Canal during the latter half of the 19th century, coinciding with the peak in local ironstone mining. Blackband and clayband ironstones were formerly mined extensively throughout the district with the principal centre at Armadale. Bedded ironstones were the main source of iron ore during the industrial revolution in Scotland, but production declined rapidly around the end of the 19th century. Among the ironstones exploited were the Curdly Ironstone and Crofthead Slatyband (Passage Formation).

The discovery of native silver in vein mineralisation associated with faulting and emplacement of a quartz-dolerite dyke at Hilderston [NS 990 715] in 1606 resulted in intermittent mining activity for silver, lead and nickel between 1607 and 1898. The silver lode, which unusually included native silver, was exhausted within a few years and the presence of nickel ore in the vein mineralisation was not recognised until about 1870. The mineral suite included niccolite, bravoite, annabergite, erythrite, native silver and galena, in a gangue comprising baryte, calcite and dolomite. Minor stratabound lead-zinc mineralisation has also been discovered in the same neighbourhood in the lower, argillaceous part of the Petershill Limestone.

3.2.2 Built heritage

West Lothian has a rich and varied built heritage, much of which reflects the underlying geodiversity. The earliest example is the outstanding prehistoric monuments of Cairnpapple Hill; later historic buildings include, Hopetoun House, the House of the Binns, Blackness Castle and Dalmeny.

Other notable buildings include St Michael's Parish Church, one of Scotland's finest parish churches, and Torphichen Preceptory — the tower and transepts of a 13th century church built by the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem.

West Lothian has a rich resource of good quality building stone and, as well as supplying stone for some of Edinburgh's finest buildings (see 3.2.1.6), most of West Lothian's historic buildings and all older buildings in the towns and villages are built from stone sourced within the area; two examples are given below:

3.2.2.1 Linlithgow Palace

Construction of Linlithgow Palace (Figure 155), the birthplace of Mary Queen of Scots, began in 1424 under James 1 and was completed by James VI in 1624. It is largely built from thinly bedded or laminated sandstone which weathers to a distinctive variable orange and cream colour. Historical records indicate that the stone used to build Linlithgow Palace was obtained from Kingscavil Quarry, situated a few kilometres to the east of the town. The quarry is now infilled and long disused.

The older parts of the external walls, on the east, north and parts of the west side, are composed of random-sized, roughly squared blocks built into rough courses. Parts of the later south range, particularly near the entrance, are constructed from the same type of sandstone, but used in a more formal way with squared blocks of uniform size built into regular courses.

In contrast, the King's Fountain situated within the Palace was made from a different sandstone type. This has a more uniform nature, and is finer grained and slightly softer, making it easier to carve and produce the sculptural detail seen on the fountain. The stone may also have been obtained locally, but from a different quarry.

As there are no building stone quarries operating in West Lothian today, all the stone used for repairs to the Palace have to be imported from other parts of the United Kingdom. The stone used for the recent major repairs to the King's Fountain was obtained from a quarry in Yorkshire.

3.2.2.2 Blackburn House

Blackburn House, located between Blackburn and Seafield, was constructed around 1760 with some later additions. It was built using locally-sourced sandstone, limestone and dolerite. The portico was added some time later and is made from Binny Sandstone (see 3.2.1.6) from Binny Quarry near Broxburn.

Blackburn House is about to be renovated at a cost of £3.4 million to create a bespoke centre for the Creative Industries in West Lothian, with funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund, the European Union, Historic Scotland and West Lothian Council. Like Linlithgow Palace, stone for this renovation will be obtained from Yorkshire.

3.3 Evaluating the geodiversity of West Lothian

3.3.1 Site desk study

The first stage of the project involved compiling a database of potential geodiversity sites for the West Lothian area. This was done by utilising the geological literature (much of it is over 50 years old), BGS staff expertise and additional local knowledge afforded by the LaBRIGS Group on the key geological localities of West Lothian. A preliminary list of 204 potential sites was drawn up and used to target sites for the field audit. The locations of these sites are plotted in (Figure 8) and details presented in Appendix 4. The list could be used to augment the audit in the future.

3.3.2 Field audit

Field work was carried out between August and December 2005. Of the 204 potential geodiversity sites, 86 were visited during the course of the audit. Data was recorded in BGS notebook record cards or recorded directly on to forms designed for use with the BGS GeoDiversitY database (see Appendix 5 for examples). Digital cameras were used to record the site locality, features and general site condition (see Volume 2, figures). Garmin 12XL handheld GPS units were used for site positional referencing.

As far as possible landowners and farmers were contacted prior to visiting or accessing sites, but ownership was not established for every site visited. Most landowners or farmers were helpful and allowed access, a few allowed access reluctantly, and access permission was denied by one large estate, on the grounds that any site designation arising out of the work would interfere with 'lawful estate business'.

3.3.3 Project database (GeoDiversitY)

A corporate database had been designed for previous geodiversity work in northern England (North Pennines AONB, County Durham and Northumberland National Park). This GeoDiversitY database consists of a number of tables stored in the BGS corporate Oracle database with front-end data entry and browsing capability implemented in Microsoft Access. To accommodate the different natural heritage designations used in Scotland, the database structure and entry forms were re-built.

Data from the 86 sites visited were entered into the database. Details of a further 36 sites were added — these were sites where the geodiversity was likely to be important but:

• ownership could not be determined;
• access was denied during the audit visit;
• no time was available for visiting.

This gave a total of 122 sites, which form 122 records in the GeoDiversitY database (see Appendix 5 for sample records). This data was then exported as a DBF file to allowing building of ArcGIS shape files.

3.3.4 Project GIS

A project GIS was established to display the location of geodiversity information and to enable it to be examined in relation to existing scientific, historical and cultural designations. A wide range of digital data were acquired (Figure 9), (Figure 10), (Figure 11), (Figure 12), (Figure 13) and the datasets translated to a suitable format for display in ESRI ArcGIS (Table 1).

Most of these datasets were available under licence for no cost from their owners, but fees were payable in order to licence the 1:25,000-scale soils data from the Macaulay Institute and the West Lothian wildlife site data from the Lothian Wildlife Information Centre. Both these datasets were licenced for one year. Use of Ordnance Survey mapping in the project was covered by BGS membership of the OS Pan Government Agreement, Licence Number: 100017897.

3.4 The geodiversity resource

3.4.1 Geodiversity site review

The 122 geodiversity sites are separated into four classes for GIS display based on the values assigned to the various citeria in the Geological Scientific Merit fields in the GeoDiversitY database (see Appendix 5, main database entry window). (Table 2) lists the ranking criteria applied to these fields in the database. The GeoDiversitY database and its ranking criteria were designed by BGS to applicable to all parts of Britain and have the potential to become the national standard for geodiversity databasing.

(Table 2) Ranking criteria for BGS geodiversity audits.

The four classes applied are:

3: Geological features of great value, worthy of interpretation & conservation — 34 sites

2: Geological features of some value, may be worthy of interpretation & conservation — 33 sites

1: Geological features of limited value — 34 sites

0: Geological features destroyed, no longer visible, or of no value — 21 sites

Although the Geological Scientific Merit (GSM) scores were taken into account when applying these four classes to the sites, other factors such as the number of other natural heritage designations were also considered. Also the WLGS list includes a few sites that were not visited and thus not scored for GSM.

The 67 class 3 and class 2 sites are considered to be representative of particular geodiversity features in the context of West Lothian and classed here as West Lothian Geodiversity Sites (WLGS). For numbering and description purposes, a number of these localities have been considered together to give a total of 51 WLGSs ((Table 3), (Figure 14)).

Of these 51 WLGS sites, four have statutory protection as geological or mixed geological and biological SSSIs (4–East Kirkton, 25–Skolie Burn, 26–Petershill Quarries and 27–Rifle Ranges Quarries). The remaining 47 WLGSs form a reservoir of non-statutory, but significant geodiversity sites. Five of these 47 sites are existing RIGS and LaBRIGS have a further 16 localities on a 'proposed' RIGS list for possible future designation.

(Table 3) West Lothian Geodiversity Sites (WLGS) and explanation of abbreviations.

Explanation of table

Sections 3.4.2 to 3.4.9 describe the WLGSs within their component geological groups and themes. Further details on the site access, site fragility and the importance of the geological features are available in the GeoDiversitY database.

The sections on soil, habitat and land use and biodiversity are not intended to be comprehensive, but give an indication on their relationship with the geodiversity. Possible future work could include expansion of these sections by further collaboration with SNH and possibly the Macaulay Institute.