Three Scottish sites have been recognised by the International Union of Geological Science (IUGS) in its recently announced “second 100” list of internationally important geological locations.
The first of these is the Parallel Roads of Glen Roy, which is part of NatureScot’s Glen Roy National Nature Reserve. This location is home to an iconic suite of glacial lake shorelines that informed the development of Glacial Theory in the 19th century. Three shorelines, or “parallel roads”, are evidence that glaciers were once in an area where none exist today.
The second site is the Rum Igneous Complex, in NatureScot’s Rum National Nature Reserve, which is regarded as the internal plumbing of one of Scotland’s most recently active (60-million-year-old) volcanoes in which chromium and the precious metal platinum accumulated in chambers of molten magma.
The third site is Barrow Zones, in the Scottish Highlands, a series of rock layers in the Glen Esk area that were once mud on an ancient ocean floor. Changes in the mineral content of rocks along Glen Esk show that the rocks experienced increasingly higher pressures and temperatures in a north-westerly direction when plate tectonics brought the geological foundations of Scotland together, around 470 million years ago.
The main goal of the IUGS collaborative program that selected the sites is to give the highest recognition to those sites that are essential for the geological sciences. As with the first 100 sites, the second 100 sites receive IUGS recognition because they are of the highest scientific value. The full list was announced during the 37th International Geological Congress in Busan, Republic of Korea on 27 August 2024
Siccar Point in the Scottish Borders and the Moine Thrust in the northwest Highlands were recognised in the first 100 IUGS Geological Heritage Sites in 2022.
More information about the newly designated Scottish sites can be found on the NatureScot website and details of all 200 sites can be found on the IUGS website.