Talk:Staffa

There was a lot about this article that needed changing.


 * The distances are imperial and (literally) miles out. If Staffa was only 5 miles from Oban, it would need to cut Mull in half!
 * My map seems fairly sure that Staffa is basically due N of Iona, but I'm leaving that part for now.
 * During the tourist season it is visited every weekday by boat from Oban. That's a long trip! I think the excursions from Oban are much less frequent than that. The main tourist boats sail from Dervaig, Ulva Ferry and Fionnphort.
 * Corrected the gaelic The Herdsman name.
 * A lot of the content on Fingal's Cave should probably go into that article, if it is going to exist at all.
 * The author then seems to waver from a NPOV with a lovely artistic description of the island. I've left that in for now.

Finally, there were a lot of typo's in this. Was it OCR'ed or perhaps copied from a book? It has some relatively recent information, so I hope there isn't any Copyright issue.

Cave Dimensions
More thoughts (22/12/02):
 * There are some really detailed measurements in this article. Did the author go with a measuring tape, or is it from an out of copyright book?
 * Perhaps Fingal's Cave should be left here, with a #REDIRECT to Staffa put on Fingal's Cave.

Ideas?

--DWeir

Haswell-Smith (2004)'s measurements are used in the recent revision.Ben MacDui (Talk) 19:37, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Tufa, Tuff etc.
Could somebody check whether 'tufa' is correct? Tufa (q.v.) is sedimentary, whereas 'tuff' is igneous rock, and seems to me to be more likely on Staffa.

--PKnight

It is probably not tufa, which, to the best of my knowledge is not found anywhere in the Hebrides. There is a question as to whether it is tuff either. I have been unable to find a source which can verify the nature of this third and lowest layer. However, as the photograph clearly identifies it, the text remains. Access to: Bailey, E B & Anderson, E M 1925 ‘The geology of Staffa, Iona, and Western Mull’ (a description of Sheet 43 of the Geological Map), Mem Geol Surv Gt Brit Scot. would probably resolve the issue, but my library lacks it. Ben MacDui (Talk) 19:37, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

I am sure this is tuff. My father, Alastair de Watteville, owned Staffa in the 70's (and interestingly is also a direct descendent of previous owner Colin MacDonald of Boisdale - a coincidence we discovered only after buying the island) and has written and contributed to a couple of books on the subject: 'Staffa', part of the Island Series published by David & Charles PLC 1976 and 'The Island of Staffa: Its Astonishing Rock Formations Include World-renowned Fingal's Cave' published by Romsey Fine Art in 1993. I have copies of both books if you need any more information.

I also feel the text saying 'third layer of basaltic lava lacking a crystalline structure' is not quite correct. This is still a very much a crystalline basalt material, and does in fact still exhibit the broadly hexagonal structure but it does not follow the rigid columnar form of the mid layer.

Overall a GREAT improvement to the Staffa entry - well done.

Angusdew 16:00, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

I have at last found the time to honour your father's connection and work. I couldn't find a confirmation for the other book you mention. Is it a chapter in The Isle of Mull: Tranquillity and Spectacular Beauty in the Inner Hebrides (Island Tributes)? --Ben MacDui (Talk) 20:53, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Auto Peer Review
The following suggestions were generated by a semi-automatic javascript program, and might not be applicable for the article in question. You may wish to browse through User:AndyZ/Suggestions for further ideas. Thanks, Ben MacDui (Talk) 14:46, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
 * See if possible if there is a free use image that can go on the top right corner of this article.[?]
 * Avoid including galleries in articles, as per Wikipedia:Galleries. Common solutions to this problem include moving the gallery to a separate page, like Gallery of Staffa.[?]
 * Per Wikipedia:Manual of Style (numbers), there should be a non-breaking space -  between a number and the unit of measurement. For example, instead of 125 metres, use 125 metres, which when you are editing the page, should look like: 125&amp;nbsp;metres.[?]
 * Per Wikipedia:Manual of Style (numbers), please spell out source units of measurements in text; for example, the Moon is 380,000 kilometres (240,000 mi) from Earth.[?] Specifically, an example is 9 km.
 * Per Manual of Style (headings), headings generally should not repeat the title of the article. For example, if the article was Ferdinand Magellan, instead of using the heading  ==Magellan's journey== , use  ==Journey== .[?]
 * Per Manual of Style (headings), avoid using special characters (ex: &+{}[]) in headings.
 * Please ensure that the article has gone through a thorough copyediting so that it exemplifies some of Wikipedia's best work. See also User:Tony1/How to satisfy Criterion 1a.[?]

GA review
That's all for now. -- Phoenix  (talk) 03:38, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
 * In the first sentence, to which Norse is that reffering? There's obviously multiple things, several of which are languages.
 * Also in the lead, "The island came to prominence in the late eighteenth century after a visit by Sir Joseph Banks who extolled the natural beauty of the basalt columns in general and of the island's main sea cavern which he re-named 'Fingal's Cave'. " It's a heck of a sentence and might need a comma somewhere in there to divide it up.
 * The following sentence, near the end of the Geography section, screams for a comma as well: "This is a huge sea cave near the southern tip of the island some 20 m high and 75 m long formed in cliffs of hexagonal basalt columns called the Colonnade or The Great Face that inspired Felix Mendelssohn's Die Hebriden (English: Hebrides Overture opus 26), which was premiered in London in 1832."
 * Obviously on-going is the inclusion of galleries in articles. There may be too many images to merge up here, maybe the best four could be selected and the others, at least, temporarily discarded?
 * Not a fan of the Miscellany section, as Wikipedia's essay about its inclusion is probably victorious here. There's only four points, they can probably be merged into the main prose.
 * The Wordsworth quote would probably be better with a Quote box.

Hopefully completed. Ben MacDui (Talk) 18:51, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
 * [[Image:Symbol support vote.svg|15px]] GA pass. Thanks for reading the comments. -- Phoenix  (talk) 16:48, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Stafa or Staffa Old Norse??
Stafa or Staffa is not Old Norse. Stafey [Insula columnæ] is the Old Norse name for Staffa. Stafa is in fact a verb in Old Norse. See here: and  And in Iceland there is a namesake of Stafey (in Hvammsfjörður). --85.220.85.0 (talk) 15:40, 27 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Neither reference conveys anything much to me I'm afraid. I will have a look at the wording of the lead and attempt to remove any ambiguity. Ben   Mac  Dui  07:35, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Staffa Oil Field
There is/was a Staffa Oil Field in the North Sea obviously named after the Island. Perhaps it would be worth adding although the field has been abandoned and decommissioned? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Auldbreck (talk • contribs) 10:54, 22 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks for raising the issue. It is really only relevant to this article if there is a genuine connection between the two, rather than the company simply using the name for PR purposes. On the assumption it's the latter it would be a reason for creating Staffa (disambiguation) if there was a real likelihood that Staffa oilfield was going to be created as an article. Ben   Mac  Dui  19:12, 22 September 2008 (UTC)