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North West Highlands Geopark
The North West Highlands Geopark is a geopark in the Scottish Highlands. Awarded UNESCO geopark status in 2004, it was Scotland's first geopark, featuring some of the oldest rocks in Europe, around 3,000 million years old. The park contains many notable geological features, such as the Moine Thrust Belt and Smoo Cave and covers an area of around . Geography The park is located in the extreme north-west of Scotland and includes parts of Sutherland and Wester Ross, including Cape Wrath. The area is one of the most sparsely inhabited in Europe, and is largely treeless. The park's eastern boundary generally follows the Moine Thrust Belt, otherwise the park is generally bounded by the north and west coasts of Scotland, with a few islands included in the park, such as the Summer Isles. Notable features The Moine Thrust Belt was formed between 430 and 500 million years ago. The belt includes Precambrian Moine rocks which have been pushed on top of younger Cambrian and Ordovician rock ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Knockan Crag
Knockan Crag ( gd, Creag a' Chnocain, "crag of the small hill")The Story of Knockan Crag National Nature Reserve. p. ii. lies within the North West Highlands Geopark in the Assynt region of Scotland north of Ullapool. During the nineteenth century Knockan Crag became the subject of much debate when geologists noted that the Moine schists at the top of the crag appeared to be older than the Cambrian and Ordovician rocks such as Durness limestone lower down. Disagreements over the processes that could have caused this to occur were referred to at the time as the " Highlands Controversy". The argument was primarily between Roderick Murchison and Archibald Geikie on the one hand and James Nicol and Charles Lapworth on the other. Murchison and Geikie believed the sequence was wrong and that the Moine schists must be the younger rocks. The controversy was finally resolved by the work of Ben Peach and John Horne whose 1907 paper on the subject remains a classic text. Peach and Horne de ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Moine Supergroup
The Moine Supergroup is a sequence of Neoproterozoic metamorphic rocks that form the dominant outcrop of the Scottish Highlands between the Moine Thrust Belt to the northwest and the Great Glen Fault to the southeast. The sequence is metasedimentary in nature and was metamorphosed and deformed in a series of tectonic events during the Late Proterozoic and Early Paleozoic. It takes its name from ''A' Mhòine'', a peat bog in northern Sutherland. Distribution The main outcrop of the Moine series lies northwest of the Great Glen Fault, structurally above the Moine Thrust to the west forming what is known as the Northern Highlands Terrane. A smaller area of similar rocks that are correlated with these, outcrop within the 'Grampian Terrane' to the southeast of the Great Glen. Moinian rocks are also recognised on Mull, Orkney and Shetland. Stratigraphy The Moine Supergroup has been subdivided into different groups or divisions. The relationship between individual groups in terms of ag ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fault (geology)
In geology, a fault is a planar fracture or discontinuity in a volume of rock across which there has been significant displacement as a result of rock-mass movements. Large faults within Earth's crust result from the action of plate tectonic forces, with the largest forming the boundaries between the plates, such as the megathrust faults of subduction zones or transform faults. Energy release associated with rapid movement on active faults is the cause of most earthquakes. Faults may also displace slowly, by aseismic creep. A ''fault plane'' is the plane that represents the fracture surface of a fault. A ''fault trace'' or ''fault line'' is a place where the fault can be seen or mapped on the surface. A fault trace is also the line commonly plotted on geologic maps to represent a fault. A ''fault zone'' is a cluster of parallel faults. However, the term is also used for the zone of crushed rock along a single fault. Prolonged motion along closely spaced faults can blur the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thrust Fault
A thrust fault is a break in the Earth's crust, across which older rocks are pushed above younger rocks. Thrust geometry and nomenclature Reverse faults A thrust fault is a type of reverse fault that has a dip of 45 degrees or less. If the angle of the fault plane is lower (often less than 15 degrees from the horizontal) and the displacement of the overlying block is large (often in the kilometer range) the fault is called an ''overthrust'' or ''overthrust fault''. Erosion can remove part of the overlying block, creating a ''fenster'' (or ''window'') – when the underlying block is exposed only in a relatively small area. When erosion removes most of the overlying block, leaving island-like remnants resting on the lower block, the remnants are called ''klippen'' (singular ''klippe''). Blind thrust faults If the fault plane terminates before it reaches the Earth's surface, it is referred to as a ''blind thrust'' fault. Because of the lack of surface evidence, blind thr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tectonic
Tectonics (; ) are the processes that control the structure and properties of the Earth's crust and its evolution through time. These include the processes of mountain building, the growth and behavior of the strong, old cores of continents known as cratons, and the ways in which the relatively rigid plates that constitute the Earth's outer shell interact with each other. Tectonics also provide a framework for understanding the earthquake and volcanic belts that directly affect much of the global population. Tectonic studies are important as guides for economic geologists searching for fossil fuels and ore deposits of metallic and nonmetallic resources. An understanding of tectonic principles is essential to geomorphologists to explain erosion patterns and other Earth surface features. Main types of tectonic regime Extensional tectonics Extensional tectonics is associated with the stretching and thinning of the crust or the lithosphere. This type of tectonics is found ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Horne
John Horne PRSE FRS FRSE FEGS LLD (1 January 1848 – 30 May 1928) was a Scottish geologist. He served as President of the Royal Society of Edinburgh from 1915 to 1919. Life Horne was born on 1 January 1848, in Campsie, Stirlingshire, the son of Janet (''née'' Braid) and James Horne of Newmill, a farmer. He was educated at the High School, Glasgow, and the University of Glasgow where he studied under Lord Kelvin. He left university without graduating at the age on 19. In 1867 he joined the Scottish Branch of HM Geological Survey as an assistant and became an apprentice to Ben Peach. The two soon became good friends and collaborators. Horne was involved in mapping the Central Lowlands. Horne was a logical thinker and writer, complementing Peach's skills of resolving the internal structure of mountains by looking at the surface rocks. Thia approach allowed them to resolve a long-running debate on the "Highlands Controversy" in the 1907 publication of ''The Geological Struct ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ben Peach
Benjamin Neeve Peach (6 September 1842 – 29 January 1926) was a British geologist. Life Peach was born at Gorran Haven in Cornwall on 6 September 1842 to Jemima Mabson and Charles William Peach, an amateur British naturalist and geologist. He was educated at the Royal School of Mines in London and then joined the Geological Survey in 1862 as a geologist, moving to the Scottish branch in 1867. He is best remembered for his work on the Northwest Highlands and Southern Uplands with his friend and colleague John Horne, where they resolved the long-running "Highlands Controversy" with their 1907 publication of ''The Geological Structure of the North-West Highlands of Scotland''. In 1881 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. His proposers were Archibald Geikie, Sir Charles Wyville Thomson, Peter Guthrie Tait and Robert Gray. He won the Society's Neill Prize for the period 1883–86. He served as the Society's Vice President from 1912 to 1917. He was electe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Highlands Controversy Of Northwest Scotland
The Highlands controversy was a scientific controversy which started between British geologists in the middle of the nineteenth century concerning the nature of the rock strata in the Northwest Highlands of Scotland. The debate became contentious, even acrimonious, because of some of the personalities involved and because it pitted professional geologists of the Geological Survey against academic and amateur geologists. An initial resolution was achieved by about 1886 but the great complexity and scientific importance of the discovery of the Moine Thrust Belt and the geological processes involved in its creation led to field work continuing for a further twenty years culminating in the 1907 publication by the Geological Survey of a book of fundamental geological significance: ''The Geological Structure of the North-West Highlands of Scotland''. The acrimony was an important factor in the political decision to set up the Wharton Committee of 1899 to review the state-funded Geologi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charles Lapworth
Charles Lapworth FRS FGS (20 September 1842 – 13 March 1920) was a headteacher and an English geologist who pioneered faunal analysis using index fossils and identified the Ordovician period. Biography Charles Lapworth was born at Faringdon in Berkshire (now Oxfordshire) the son of James Lapworth. His school in Galashiels in 2021 He trained as a teacher at the Culham Diocesan Training College near Abingdon, Oxfordshire. He moved to the Scottish border region, where he investigated the previously little-known fossil fauna of the area. He was headmaster of the school in Galashiels from 1864 to 1875. In 1869 he married Janet, daughter of Galashiels schoolmaster Walter Sanderson. Through mapping and innovative use of index fossil analysis, based on a sequence exposed at Dob's Linn, Lapworth showed that what was thought to be a thick sequence of Silurian rocks was in fact a much thinner series of rocks repeated by faulting and folding. He completed this pioneering resea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Archibald Geikie
Sir Archibald Geikie (28 December 183510 November 1924) was a Scottish geologist and writer. Early life Geikie was born in Edinburgh in 1835, the eldest son of Isabella Thom and her husband James Stuart Geikie, a musician and music critic. The elder brother of James Geikie, he was educated at Edinburgh High School and University of Edinburgh. Career In 1855 was appointed an assistant on the British Geological Survey. Wielding the pen with no less facility than the hammer, he inaugurated his long list of works with ''The Story of a Boulder; or, Gleanings from the Note-Book of a Geologist'' (1858). His ability at once attracted the notice of his chief, Sir Roderick Murchison, with whom he formed a lifelong friendship, and whose biographer he subsequently became. With Murchison some of his earliest work was done on the complicated regions of the schists of the Scottish Highlands; and the small geological map of Scotland published in 1862 was their joint work: a larger map was ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Roderick Murchison
Sir Roderick Impey Murchison, 1st Baronet, (19 February 1792 – 22 October 1871) was a Scotland, Scottish geologist who served as director-general of the British Geological Survey from 1855 until his death in 1871. He is noted for investigating and describing the Silurian, Devonian and Permian systems. Early life and work Murchison was born at Tarradale Castle, Tarradale House, Muir of Ord, Ross-shire, the son of Barbara and Kenneth Murchison. His wealthy father died in 1796, when Roderick was four years old, and he was sent to Durham School three years later, and then the Royal Military College, Great Marlow to be trained for the army. In 1808 he landed with Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, Wellesley in Portugal, and was present at the actions of Battle of Roliça, Roliça and Battle of Vimeiro, Vimeiro in the Peninsular War as an ensign in the 36th (Herefordshire) Regiment of Foot, 36th Regt of Foot. Subsequently under Sir John Moore (British Army officer), John Mo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gazetteer For Scotland
The ''Gazetteer for Scotland'' is a gazetteer covering the geography, history and people of Scotland. It was conceived in 1995 by Bruce Gittings of the University of Edinburgh and David Munro of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society, and contains 25,870 entries as of July 2019. It claims to be "the largest dedicated Scottish resource created for the web". The Gazetteer for Scotland provides a carefully researched and editorially validated resource widely used by students, researchers, tourists and family historians with interests in Scotland. Following on from a strong Scottish tradition of geographical publishing, the ''Gazetteer for Scotland'' is the first comprehensive gazetteer to be produced for the country since Francis Groome's ''Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland'' (1882-6) (the text of which is incorporated into relevant entries). The aim is not to produce a travel guide, of which there are many, but to write a substantive and thoroughly edited description of the count ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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