Black Devon

It rises in the Cleish Hills,[1][2] specifically the area known as Outh Muir,[3] 1.5 kilometres (0.9 mi) north of Knockhill Racing Circuit, around 9 kilometres (6 mi) north-west of Dunfermline, Fife, with the gathering of three small streams in branch formation.

The Black Devon enters the River Forth south of Alloa,[5] 1 kilometre (0.6 mi) north of Dunmore Pier.

These eventually filled with a mixture of fresh and salt water, the river being tidal at the point where the collapse into the mine workings occurred.

Coal mining over a long period of time, from probably at least three collieries working different strata, had caused significant subsidence around the lower reaches of the Black Devon and its confluence with the River Forth.

[7][8] Gartmorn Dam is a reservoir which was initially designed and built in 1712 by George Sorocold[9] for John Erskine, Earl of Mar (1675–1732), and later upgraded several times by others,[10] to provide water power for the pumps which drained his collieries in Alloa.