The smaller of a pair of pink-coloured oil shale bings which lie between Broxburn and the M8 Motorway, Green Bing is located a quarter-mile (0.4 km) east of Stankards Bing in West Lothian. Abandoned since 1921 with the closure of the Uphall Oil Works, these represent monuments to an industry which extracted lighting and heating oil from shale deposited in lagoons during the Carboniferous period, some 340 million years ago. Extending to cover a footprint of 9 ha (22.2 acres), Green Bing rises to 61m (200 feet) above the surrounding countryside, or 160m (525 feet) above sea level, although may have been lowered by management and stabilisation efforts. These efforts have resulted in a loss of species which had colonised the bing.
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