Page 23 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide - Scotland

A POR TR AIT OF SC O TLAND  21

U-shaped valleys in
the Highlands are a
legacy of the last Ice
Age. The weight and
move ments of glaciers
broke off spurs,
deepening and
rounding out the
existing river valleys.

Quartzite peaks soar
above a base of sand stone
Freshwater loch
in parts of the Tor ridon
range. The quartzite can
Rock layers in be mistaken for snow from
a stepped effect a distance.
The basalt columns of the
Isle of Staffa (see p137) were
Deep sea loch formed 60 million years ago.
A flow of lava cooled slowly,
contracting and fracturing
in a distinctive hexagonal
pattern similar to the Giant’s
Causeway in Ireland.

The Highland
Boundary Fault runs
from Stonehaven, on
the east coast, to Arran
on the west as an
obvious line of hills.
Serpentine

Old lava flow

Typical Features
This cross-section is an idealized
representation (not to scale) of some of the
distinctive geology of the Highlands and
islands of northwest Scotland. The tortuously
indented coastline of this part of the country Devonian sandstone is prevalent in the
is a result of high precipitation in the area Orkney Islands (see pp162–3). In places,
during the last Ice Age which heavily eroded the sea has eroded the horizontally
the layers of ancient rocks, leaving a layered rock into spectacular cliffs and
beautiful and contrasting land scape of stacks, as with the 137-m (450-ft) Old
boulder-strewn glens and deep lochs. Man of Hoy.

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