Contents
1 The Crunch of Continents
Various earth-shattering events of the last two billion years: Scotland crashes into England; the UK drifts north through tropics; the nudge from Africa; the opening of the Atlantic
2 Ice Makes the Mountain Shapes of Today
Glaciers carved the shapes as we see them today.
The main rock types, in roughly geological order (oldest first)
3 Having a Gneiss Time
The Lewisian Gneiss, in the Outer Hebrides and Wester Ross; landscape of knock-and-lochan; a moment in the Malverns.
4 The Monsters of Torridon
Sandstone lands of Wester Ross; buried landscapes; the origin of our oxygen.
5 Quartzite
Beinn Eighe and the Grey Corries; the Moine Thrust
6 Grey for everyday wear: Schist in Scotland's central Highlands
The Mountains of Moine and the Dalradian; metamorphism, rocks cooked and crushed; shale to slate to schist
7 Greywacke and the ruggedness of Rhinog
How ocean-bottom sludge became the rock of the Rhinogs
8 Southern Uplands: shales and mud
More ocean sludge; the life and times of the graptolite; Charles Lapworth in Dobbs Linn.
9 All-terrain Lakeland
Volcanoes and slate, grey shale and granite; four different sorts of country but only one Lakeland
10 Red-hot flying avalanche: ignimbrites in Snowdonia
Various cataclysms above Llyn Idwal
11 Finding Fault
Faults, and a walk along one in particular, the Rossett Gill Fault of Lakeland
12 Andesite and Rhyolite
More volcanoes, at Ben Nevis and Glen Coe; collapsing cauldrons
13 Granite Lands
Cairngorms, Dartmoor, Arran, Mourne, Galloway Š very different but all of them a bit grim; the cause of Tors
14 Being Intrusive: Dolerite
The Whin Sill in the north Pennines, ArthurÕs Seat in Edinburgh and God vs Mr James Hutton
15 The Sands of Time
The Old Red Sandstone of the Brecon Beacons; the New Red Sandstone fails to make mountains
16 Mountain Limestone: Millstone Grit
Yorkshire and the Peak District; lime to grit to shale: the Yoredale Series
17 Gabbro lands: the Skye Cuillin
The Black Cuillin, and other effects of the opening Atlantic; the Tertiary Volcanic Province
18 Back to Basalt: Mull and the rest of Skye
Mull, and some more of Skye; a round-up of the red-hot rocks
19 A Two Hundred Million Year Walk over Dufton Pike
Breaking the Law of Superposition behind Dufton Pike, with a visit to the Great Whin Sill
Appendix
My country, your country, further reading and more things to see; glossary
Index