Research output per year
Research output per year
Tom Bradwell*, Colin K. Ballantyne
Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter
The far northwest of mainland Scotland is renowned for its scenery, structural complexity and geodiversity, and is designated as a UNESCO Global Geopark. The region is bisected by the Moine Thrust Zone (MTZ), west of which a foreland of undeformed Archaean gneiss supports inselbergs of Neoproterozoic and Palaeozoic rocks, and east of which are thrust-stacked, deformed metasedimentary rocks of the Neoproterozoic Moine Supergroup. The MTZ forms a north–south belt within which rocks were extensively thrust and folded during the Caledonian Orogeny. Successive Pleistocene glaciations have resulted in an array of erosional landforms: troughs, rock basins, cirques, glacially steepened inselbergs, extensive areas of knock-and-lochan terrain and clusters of glacial megagrooves. During the last and earlier ice-sheet glaciations, the region sourced northwestward-flowing ice feeding the Minch Ice Stream, which extended far across the adjacent shelf, but by ~15 ka the last ice sheet had retreated to its mountain heartland. The Loch Lomond Stade (~12.9 to 11.7 ka) witnessed reoccupation of the main mountain axis by a substantial (~350 km2) icefield, and cirque glaciers formed on peripheral mountains; the extent of the former is mainly delimited by multiple recessional moraines, the latter by end-moraine belts. Lateglacial and Holocene landforms include outwash or delta terraces at fjord heads, sea stacks, beaches backed by sand dunes, rock-slope failures, relict talus accumulations, and active periglacial and aeolian features on high ground. Karst terrain developed on dolostones comprises sinkholes, resurgences and extensive cave networks formed by water-table lowering due to Middle and Late Pleistocene valley deepening.
Original language | English |
---|---|
Title of host publication | Landscapes and landforms of Scotland |
Editors | Colin K. Ballantyne, John E. Gordon |
Place of Publication | Cham |
Publisher | Springer Science and Business Media B.V. |
Chapter | 12 |
Pages | 233-250 |
Number of pages | 18 |
ISBN (Electronic) | 9783030712464 |
ISBN (Print) | 9783030712457, 9783030712488 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 25 Aug 2021 |
Name | World geomorphological landscapes |
---|---|
ISSN (Print) | 2213-2090 |
ISSN (Electronic) | 2213-2104 |
Research output: Book/Report › Book