sea stack

plural sea stacks · alternative sea-stack

1. UKgeographyA pillar of rock that rises from the ocean, formed by surrounding softer ground eroding away.

   At the foot of the cliffs are narrow boulder beaches and a few sea stacks.

   1955, George C[layton] Kennedy, Howard H[amilton] Waldron, “Geography”, in Geology of Pavlof Volcano and Vicinity, Alaska (Investigation of Alaskan Volcanoes; Geological Survey Bulletin; 1028-A), Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, →OCLC, page 4

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   The sea-gull sprang upwards from where he had floated on the ripple, and hied him slowly away to his lodge in his deep sea-stack; the dusky cormorant flitted past, with heavier and more frequent stroke, to his whitened shelf high on the precipice; [...]

   1854 May 15, “Notes on Books”, in Norton’s Literary Gazette and Publishers’ Circular, volume I (New Series), number X, New York, N.Y.: Baker, Godwin & Co., […] [for Charles Benjamin Norton], →OCLC, page 248, column 3

   That this defile may have been partly eroded by the action of the sea is also very probable; and there are certain isolated pinnacles and irregular columns of agglomerate in its immediate neighbourhood which have all the appearance of being old sea-stacks.

   1878 March 6, A. C. Ramsay, James Geikie, “On the Geology of Gibraltar”, in W[illiam] S[weetland] Dallas, editor, The Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London, volume XXXIV, London: Longmans, Green, Reader, and Dyer; […], →ISSN, →OCLC, page 524

   The sea, with its tremendous battering-power, is excavating caves, just as the streams make pot-holes; only the action is horizontal, rather than vertical, the water lashing like a whip around the flanks of the sea-stacks and islets.

   1895, Grenville A[rthur] J[ames] Cole, “Along the Shore”, in Open-air Studies: An Introduction to Geology Out-of-doors (Griffin’s Scientific Text Books), London: Charles Griffin and Company, […] , →OCLC, page 94

   Off the shore of still another island they found a stand of sea stacks, weird towers of rock sculpted by sand and wind and engulfed in flocks of gulls and cormorants, and as they banked for another look, Kate saw three bald eagles take wing.

   1993, Dana Stabenow, Dead in the Water (A Kate Shugak Mystery; 3), New York, N.Y.: Berkley Books, →ISBN, page 53

   Lying off the north-west coast of the island is the Old Man of Hoy, the most famous sea stack in the world. At a height of 450ft it dominates the neighbouring cliffs of which it was once part.

   2004, J. Murray Neil, “Hills of Hoy”, in The Scots Fiddle: Tunes, Tales & Traditions of the Western Highlands, Hebrides, Orkney & Shetland, Glasgow: Neil Wilson Publishing, published 2012, →ISBN, page 157

   Synonyms: stack