science

Loch Katrine

Loch Katrine is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Loch Katrine rather than just read about it. In short: Loch Katrine (; Scottish Gaelic: Loch Ceiteirein [l̪ˠɔx ˈkʲʰeʰtʲɪɾʲɛɲ] or Loch Ceathairne) is a freshwater loch in the Trossachs area of the Scottish Highlands, east of Loch Lomond within the Stirling council area. It mostly lies within the historic and registration county of Perthshire, with Glengyle Water and the northern part of the loch's mid-line forming part of the boundary with historic Stirlingshire.

Key takeaways

Loch Katrine belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Loch Katrine to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Loch Katrine from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Loch Katrine (; Scottish Gaelic: Loch Ceiteirein [l̪ˠɔx ˈkʲʰeʰtʲɪɾʲɛɲ] or Loch Ceathairne) is a freshwater loch in the Trossachs area of the Scottish Highlands, east of Loch Lomond within the Stirling council area. It mostly lies within the historic and registration county of Perthshire, with Glengyle Water and the northern part of the loch's mid-line forming part of the boundary with historic Stirlingshire. The loch is about 8 miles (13 km) long and 1 mile (1.6 km) wide at its widest point, and runs the length of Strath Gartney (Gaelic: Srath Ghartain). It is within the drainage basins of the River Teith and River Forth. It is a popular scenic attraction for tourists and day-visitors from Glasgow and nearby towns; fly and boat fishing for trout are permitted on the loch from spring to autumn. It also serves as a reservoir for the water supply of the Glasgow conurbation, some 30 miles (48 km) south, being connected by two aqueducts constructed in 1859. It is the fictional setting of Sir Walter Scott's poem The Lady of the Lake and of the subsequent opera by Gioachino Rossini, La donna del lago.

Toponym William Watson, a renowned scholar of Scottish place names, judged Katrine to be "thoroughly Pictish" in origin, and to derive from an extension of the Celtic root *ceit, meaning "dark, gloomy place", a name referring to the loch's heavily forested shores. The name Katrine has also been hypothesized to represent cateran, from the Gaelic ceathairne, a collective word meaning cattle thief or possibly peasantry.

Physical geography

Loch Katrine is a serpentine lake oriented WNW–ESE, about 8 miles (13 km) long, with a maximum width of almost exactly 1 mile (1.6 km) between the mouths of the Letter Burn and the Strone Burn on the northern shore to a small bay on the opposite shore. The mean breadth, obtained by dividing the area of the loch by its length, is 0.6 miles (0.97 km), 7.5% of the length. The loch covers an area of 3,059 acres (1,238 ha), and drains a mountainous area, some eight times greater, of about 24,900 acres (10,100 ha). It contains an estimated 27,274,000,000 cubic feet (772,300,000 m3) of water with a mean depth of 99 feet (30 m), being over 40% of the maximum observed depth of 495 feet (151 m). The surface of the loch is 364 feet (111 m) above sea-level, so some 645 acres (261 ha) of its bottom lies below sea-level, the deepest part being 131 feet (40 m) below sea-level. In this respect Loch Katrine differs from the other lakes in the Forth Basin, none of which have any portion of their bottoms below sea level. Loch Katrine forms a single basin, not being divided, like Loch Lomond and Loch Lubnaig, for instance, into separate basins by any important ridges or rises on the bottom. The deepest part is in the centre of the loch, a long narrow depression, with depths exceeding 400 feet (120 m), extending for over 4 miles (6.4 km) from opposite Coilachra to opposite Huinn Dubh-aird, with a maximum width of over one-quarter of a mile (0.40 km); this 400-feet depression has an area of about 515 acres (208 ha), or 17% of the entire superficial area of the loch. The deepest sounding is situated at the very eastern extremity of the 400-feet depression. The 300 feet (91 m) depression is over 5 miles (8 km) long, with a maximum breadth of one-third of a mile (0.54 km); it extends from off Coilachra to near Ellen's Isle. The area enclosed between the 300-feet and 400-feet contour lines is about 415 acres (168 ha), or 13% of the entire area of the loch. The 200 feet (61 m) depression is five and a half miles (8.9 km) in length and one-half a mile (0.80 km) in maximum breadth, extending from south of Ellen's Isle to near Black Island, where it is separated (by a sounding of 198 feet (60 m)) from a small isolated area, lying between Coilachra and Black Island, one-third of a mile (0.54 km) in length by nearly one-eighth of a mile (0.20 km) broad. The area between the 200- and 300-feet contours is about 510 acres (210 ha), or 17% of the area of the loch. There are two 100 feet (30 m) depressions, the principal one (6 miles (10 km) long) stretching from close to Ellen's Isle to Black Island, the other extending from Black Island towards the point called Rudha nam Moine, with a total length of over one-half a mile (0.80 km). The area between the 100- and 200-feet contours is about 670 acres (270 ha), or 22% of the area of the loch. The 50 feet (15 m)-feet line follows pretty closely the contour of the loch, from Rudha nam Moine into the eastern arms of the loch at the Trossachs, running outside of Black island, Ellen's isle, and the small islands near the shore all round, with a small isolated patch at the junction of the Trossachs arm with the arm leading to Achray Water; it encloses a small shallow, with a beacon on it, opposite the entrance of the Glasahoile. The area between the 50- and 100-feet contours is about 400 acres (160 ha), or 13% of the area of the loch, while the area between the coast-line and the 50-feet contour is nearly 550 acres (220 ha), or 18% of the loch area; so that 82% of the floor of the loch is covered by over 50 feet (15 m) of water.

Geology

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Loch Katrine

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Loch Katrine claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Loch Katrine before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Loch Katrine ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Loch Katrine

In research: Loch Katrine appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Loch Katrine in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Loch Katrine is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Forth basin, Freshwater lochs of Scotland, Lochs of Stirling (council area), so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Loch Katrine outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Loch Katrine in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Loch Katrine means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Loch Katrine out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Loch Katrine in simple terms?

Why does Loch Katrine matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Loch Katrine?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Loch Katrine.