Publication Date:
2010-06-21
Description:
The world's mountain ranges are the clearest manifestations of long-term deformation of the continental crust. As such they have attracted geological investigations for centuries. Throughout this long history of research a few keynote publications stand out. One of the most important is the Geological Survey's 1907 memoir, The Geological Structure of the North-West Highlands of Scotland. The papers in this Special Publication celebrate the 100th anniversary of this remarkable book, placing the original findings in a present-day context by juxtaposing them against modern studies, not only from the NW Highlands, but also from elsewhere around the world. On first sight, the 1907 memoir by B. N. Peach and colleagues is simply a description of regional geology, albeit an exceptionally detailed one. However, the memoir outlines the Geological Survey's chief discoveries, and an abundance of minor ones, resulting from a decade of fieldwork in NW Scotland. At its height this activity occupied many of the most talented field geologists of Peach and Horne's generation and a significant number of the Scottish branch of the Survey. This team performed wondrous deeds, recognizing and interpreting many deformation structures on a variety of scales. The memoir describes these structures in a matter-of-fact manner, with occasional musings on their significance for broader tectonic processes. By focusing on the detail and establishing the supreme importance of getting the basic field relationships correct, the memoir's authors established the NW Highlands of Scotland as a prime location for training. Subsequent generations of geologists, from young students to...
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