NW Highlands (Geological Evolution and Tectonics)

Module code: GL3117

The Northwest Highlands of Scotland provide the stunning backdrop to this fieldwork module. From your base around Loch Assynt, you will visit the locations where many of the now-classic studies unravelling the tectonic evolution of mountain belts were first developed. You will explore the gneisses forming the Lewisian basement and begin to understand the record of tectonic and metamorphic events locked in these rocks as a geologic history spanning hundreds of millions of years and multiple events.

We will explore the late Precambrian and early Palaeozoic sedimentation on the continental margin of Laurentia and then study how these rocks were deformed by complex thrust faulting during the Caledonian orogeny.