The Moine Thrust Belt or Moine Thrust Zone is a linear tectonic feature in the Scottish Highlands which runs from Loch Eriboll on the north coast 190 kilometres (120 mi) south-west to the Sleat peninsula on the Isle of Skye. The thrust belt consists of a series of thrust faults that branch off the Moine Thrust itself. Topographically, the belt marks a change from rugged, terraced mountains with steep sides sculptured from weathered igneous, sedimentary and metamorphic rocks in the west to an extensive landscape of rolling hills over a metamorphic rock base to the east. Mountains within the belt display complexly folded and faulted layers and the width of the main part of the zone varies up to 10 kilometres (6.2 mi), although it is significantly wider on Skye.
The Highland Boundary Fault is a major fault zone that traverses Scotland from Arran and Helensburgh on the west coast to Stonehaven in the east. It separates two different geological terranes which give rise to two distinct physiographic terrains: the Highlands and the Lowlands, and in most places it is recognisable as a change in topography. Where rivers cross the fault, they often pass through gorges, and the associated waterfalls can be a barrier to salmon migration.
The Argyll Group is a thick sequence of metamorphosed Neoproterozoic sedimentary rocks that outcrop across the Central Highlands of Scotland, east of the Great Glen, as well as appearing in the north of Ireland. It is a subdivision of the Dalradian Supergroup and is itself divided into four units; from oldest to youngest these are the Islay, Easdale, Crinan and Tayvallich subgroups.
The Colonsay Group is an estimated 5,000 m thick sequence of mildly metamorphosed Neoproterozoic sedimentary rocks that outcrop on the islands of Colonsay, Islay and Oronsay and the surrounding seabed. They have been correlated with the Grampian Group, the oldest part of the Dalradian Supergroup.
The Bowmore Sandstone Group is a sequence of metasedimentary rocks, dominantly sandstones, of probable Neoproterozoic age. Their outcrop on the island of Islay in the Inner Hebrides is entirely fault-bounded, between the Loch Gruinart Fault to the west and the Loch Skerrols Shear Zone to the east.
The Grampian Group is an estimated 9,000 m thick sequence of metamorphosed Neoproterozoic sedimentary rocks that outcrop across the Central Highlands of Scotland, east of the Great Glen. It forms a part of the Dalradian Supergroup. The sequence thickness at any one place is limited to 5km.
The Appin Group is a thick sequence of metamorphosed Neoproterozoic sedimentary rocks that outcrop across the Central Highlands of Scotland, east of the Great Glen. It forms a part of the Dalradian Supergroup.
The Southern Highland Group is a sequence of metamorphosed Neoproterozoic sedimentary rocks that outcrop across the Central Highlands of Scotland, east of the Great Glen. It forms the uppermost/youngest part of the Dalradian Supergroup and is divided into two formations. Volcanism is recorded by the Loch Avich Lavas Formation which divides the Loch Avich Grits Formation into lower and upper parts – the grits are turbidite and submarine fan deposits. In Perthshire and on Deeside, the Leny Limestone, which has been dated to 514 Ma, is present. A tillite, the Macduff Boulder Bed is known from the upper part of the group in northeast Scotland.
The Badenoch Group is a sequence of metamorphosed Tonian age sedimentary rocks that outcrop across the Central Highlands of Scotland, east of the Great Glen. This rock sequence has formerly been referred to as the Central Highland Migmatite Complex and the Central Highland Division.
This article describes the geology of the Cairngorms National Park, an area in the Highlands of Scotland designated as a national park in 2003 and extended in 2010. The Cairngorms National Park extends across a much wider area than the Cairngorms massif itself and hence displays rather more varied geology.
The geology of national parks in Britain strongly influences the landscape character of each of the fifteen such areas which have been designated. There are ten national parks in England, three in Wales and two in Scotland. Ten of these were established in England and Wales in the 1950s under the provisions of the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act 1949. With one exception, all of these first ten, together with the two Scottish parks were centred on upland or coastal areas formed from Palaeozoic rocks. The exception is the North York Moors National Park which is formed from sedimentary rocks of Jurassic age.
The geology of Loch Lomond and The Trossachs National Park in the southwestern part of the Scottish Highlands consists largely of Neoproterozoic and Palaeozoic bedrock faulted and folded and subjected to low grade metamorphism during the Caledonian orogeny. These older rocks, assigned to the Dalradian Supergroup, lie to the northwest of the northeast – southwest aligned Highland Boundary Fault which defines the southern edge of the Highlands. A part of this mountainous park extends south of this major geological divide into an area characterised by younger Devonian rocks which are assigned to the Old Red Sandstone.
The Torridonian is the informal name given to a sequence of Mesoproterozoic to Neoproterozoic sedimentary rocks that outcrop in a strip along the northwestern coast of Scotland and some parts of the Inner Hebrides from the Isle of Mull in the southwest to Cape Wrath in the northeast. They lie unconformably on the Archaean to Paleoproterozoic basement rocks of the Lewisian complex and unconformably beneath the Cambrian to Lower Ordovician rocks of the Ardvreck Group.
The Loch Ness Supergroup is one of the subdivisions of the Neoproterozoic sequence of sedimentary rocks in the Scottish Highlands. It is found everywhere in tectonic contact above the older Wester Ross Supergroup. It is thought to be unconformably overlain by the Cryogenian to Cambrian Dalradian Supergroup.
The Wester Ross Supergroup is one of the subdivisions of the Neoproterozoic sequence of sedimentary rocks in the Scottish Highlands. It lies unconformably on medium to high-grade metamorphic rocks and associated igneous rocks of the Archaean and Paleoproterozoic age Lewisian complex or locally over the Mesoproterozoic sedimentary rocks of the Stoer Group. The contact between the Wester Ross Supergroup and the next youngest of the Neoproterozoic sequences in the Scottish Highlands, the Loch Ness Supergroup, is everywhere a tectonic one.
The Highland Border Complex is an assemblage of rocks of probable early Cambrian to late Ordovician age, found as fault-bounded blocks of variable lithology exposed immediately to the southeast of the Highland Boundary Fault at the edge of the Grampian Highlands, Scotland.
The Morar Group is a sequence of Tonian sedimentary rocks that have been subjected to a series of tectonic and metamorphic events since their deposition. Originally interpreted to be lowest (oldest) part of a "Moine Supergroup", this sequence now forms part of the Wester Ross Supergroup. They lie unconformably on Archean to Paleoproterozoic basement of the Lewisian complex. The contact with the overlying Glenfinnan Group of the Loch Ness Supergroup is everywhere a tectonic one, formed by the Sgurr Beag Thrust or related structures.
The Moinian or just the Moine, formerly the Moine Supergroup, is a sequence of Neoproterozoic metasediments that outcrop in the Northwest Highlands between the Moine Thrust Belt to the northwest and the Great Glen Fault to the southeast and one part of the Grampian Highlands to the southeast of the fault. It takes its name from A' Mhòine, a peat bog in northern Sutherland.
The Highland Border Ophiolite (HBO) is a set of rocks that are ophiolitic in character found within the Highland Border Complex. They are exposed in a series of fault-bounded outcrops along the line of the Highland Boundary Fault that forms the southeastern boundary to the Grampian Highlands in Scotland. They represent fragments of a piece of oceanic crust or exhumed mantle that has been obducted onto continental crust. These rocks provide an important constraint on models of how the current geometry arose during the Caledonian Orogeny.
