North West Highlands Geopark

The Moine Thrust Belt was formed between 430 and 500 million years ago. The belt includes Precambrian Moine rocks which have been pushed on top of younger Cambrian and Ordovician rocks, much to the surprise of Victorian geologists. A debate ensued between prominent geologists of the time. Roderick Murchison and Archibald Geikie argued that the Moine rocks must in fact be younger than the rocks beneath them, a point of view opposed by James Nicol and Charles Lapworth. The controversy, the so-called "Highlands Controversy", was resolved by Ben Peach and John Horne who found that the Moine rocks had been pushed some 70 kilometres east over the top of the younger rocks by tectonic action. This…