This paper reports the formation of self-organised surface morphological features on silica irradiated with MeV energy gold ions. Amorphous silica substrates were irradiated with 1.8 MeV gold ions at normal incidence at room temperature to various doses in the range of 5 x 10(16) ions/cm(2) to 2 x 10(17) ions/cm(2). The formation of a periodic surface pattern with a wavelength of 1.35 mu m was observed at an irradiation dose of 1 x 10(17) ions/cm(2). The observation of surface segregation of gold at around the same dose suggests possible role of surface stresses caused by the incorporation of metal atoms in the formation of the observed periodic surface morphology. (C) 2011 Elsevier B. V. All rights reserved.