The Highland Controversy

Following yesterday’s long day out on Quinag, wet weather set in and motivation was lacking amongst our group.  The Inchnadamph caves were an option, as was a trip to Ullapool but with a thirst for education we went to the Knockan Crag visitor centre in the North West Highlands Geopark.

The Highland Controversy was as a result of some radical geological thinking.  There is a geological feature now known as the Moine Thrust which has a layer of rock lying on top of another, a common occurrence, but as layers are often set down as a result of sedimentation, younger rocks lie on top of older rocks.  But at the Moine Thrust the reverse is true with the upper layer being 500 million years older !  Some geologists questioned whether this was actually the case here but these doubters were eventually overcome with the ultimate outcome being the proof of plate tectonic theory.

rock layers showing the Moine Thrust

Geologists Ben Peach and John Horne worked out that the older rocks had been forced over the younger rocks, an American plate had pushed itself over a European plate.  Although controversial at the time, Peach’s and Horne’s resultant paper has come to be regarded as a classic geological text and the discovery is held by some as important as Darwin’s theory of evolution.

Peach and Horne

Knockan Crag has some trails which are easily followed with a number of sculptures and points of particular geological interest.  I would recommend a visit whatever the weather but a wet day in Scotland can be made quite a bit more interesting.

"Globe" by Joe Smith