Pre-Cambrian landscapes in Northwest Scotland

✍ Scribed by A. D. Stewart

• Book ID: 102846640
• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2007
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 665 KB
• Volume: 8
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0072-1050
• DOI: 10.1002/gj.3350080110

✦ Synopsis

An old land surface carved out of basement gneisses is extensively preserved beneath Torridon Group sandstones (deposited ca. 750 m.y. B.P.). Contoured reconstructions show that relief declines westward from 2000 ft (600 m) to almost nothing over a distance of 25 km. North-northeast trending zones of similar dissection can be traced for 160 km. Weathering up to 2 m deep is locally present in the flat zone. The cssentially unweathered land surface forming the mountains probably originated by dissection of a palaeoplain. The flat zone is probably, but not certainly, a relatively young pediplain. All land forms are thought to have developed before, not during, deposition of the overlying sediments.