Skerry
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A skerry is a small rocky island, usually defined to be too small for habitation. It may simply be a rocky reef.
The term skerry is derived from the old Norse sker, which means a rock in the sea. The Old Norse term sker got into the English language via the Scots language. It is a cognate of the Scandinavian languages' (skjær, skär and skjär) (fi:kari).
[edit] Formation
Skerries are most commonly formed at the outlet of fjords where submerged glacially formed valleys at right angles with 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 & mountainous while others a merely rocky points or rock reefs, menacing navigation.
[edit] Examples
The island fringe of Norway 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 to North Cape, Norway. The Blindleia is a skerry-protected waterway that starts near Kristiansand in southern Norway, and continues past Lillesand.
The “inside passage” 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.
The Swedish coast along Bohuslän is likewise skerry guarded.
The southwestern coast of Finland also has a large amount of skerries, so many, in fact, that they form an archipelago.
The United Kingdom has a large number of skerries including Staple Island (an Outer Farne Island) in England, and a small rocky outcrop near the Fowlsheugh in northeast Scotland.
For a list of the various islands and island groups with skerry or skerries as part of their name see: The Skerries.
Skerry (and the [pl] Skerries) is used as a fictional term in Neal Stephensons novel Cryptonomicon. It describes a small mammal with a long tail, probably similar to a rat.
da:Skær de:Schäre no:Skjærgård nl:Scherenkust pl:Szkier sv:Skärpl:Szkier
