Scottish Geologist

23/10/2026

🏔️ EXPLORE THE GEOLOGY OF THE ISLE OF SKYE – APRIL 2027! 🌋🪨

Fancy exploring one of Scotland’s most geologically spectacular islands with a geologist?

Join me next April for an unforgettable geological adventure around the Isle of Skye, where we’ll uncover hundreds of millions of years of Earth’s history!

From the dramatic volcanic landscapes of the Cuillin Mountains and the Quiraing to ancient Jurassic coastlines packed with fossils and dinosaur footprints, Skye is an absolute geological paradise!

🌋 Discover the incredible volcanic history that shaped the island.

🦕 Travel back to the Jurassic Period and explore the world of Skye’s dinosaurs.

⛰️ Explore spectacular rock formations, ancient sedimentary sequences and some of Scotland’s most breathtaking scenery.

🪨 Learn how to read the rocks and piece together the geological events that created this extraordinary landscape.

Whether you’re a complete beginner, a geology enthusiast or simply someone who loves exploring Scotland’s natural landscapes, this tour is for you!

📅 April 2027
📍 Isle of Skye, Scotland

Come along and discover the stories written in Skye’s rocks!

🎟️ Book your place through my website: www.scottishgeologist.co.uk/skye

19/10/2026

19/10/2026

I have never seen that many footprints in my life man. 🦖 Walking in the footsteps of dinosaurs… literally! 🦕

Imagine standing exactly where dinosaurs walked around 100 million years ago!

Welcome to Dinosaur Ridge in Colorado, USA, where you can see hundreds of dinosaur footprints preserved in ancient sedimentary rocks dating back to the Cretaceous Period.

These incredible footprints were left behind when dinosaurs walked across soft, wet sediment along the margins of an ancient coastal environment. Over time, the footprints were buried by additional layers of sediment, preserving them in the geological record.

Millions of years later, tectonic forces associated with the uplift of the Rocky Mountains tilted these once-horizontal sedimentary layers, exposing the footprints on the steeply inclined rock surface we see today.

What’s even more fascinating is that these footprints are trace fossils! Unlike dinosaur bones, which preserve parts of the animal itself, trace fossils provide evidence of behaviour, movement and how dinosaurs interacted with their environment.

It’s one thing to see a dinosaur skeleton in a museum, but it’s something else entirely to stand where these incredible animals once walked!

19/10/2026

🌋 When the Earth decides to build a new road… right over the old one!

Iceland is one of the most geologically active places on Earth, sitting directly on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, where the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates are slowly moving apart.

Here on the Reykjanes Peninsula, just behind the famous Blue Lagoon, recent volcanic eruptions have completely transformed the landscape, with fresh lava flows burying roads and infrastructure beneath metres of solidified rock.

What you’re looking at is the result of molten basaltic lava erupting from fissures in the Earth’s crust, flowing across the landscape before cooling and solidifying into brand-new rock.

And the fascinating thing? This is geology happening right before our eyes! We’re witnessing the same processes that have been shaping Iceland for millions of years.

It’s one thing to study ancient lava flows in Scotland, but it’s something else entirely to stand beside a lava flow that’s only recently formed and see just how powerful these geological processes really are.

🌍 The Earth isn’t finished building Iceland just yet!

07/10/2026

Anyone else feel like W***y Wonka with chocolate except with me it’s with rocks 😂.

07/10/2026

From Scotland to Denver - I’m very excited to be joining the Geological Society of America as a GSA Ambassador! 🌍🪨

I’ll be heading to GSA Connects and bringing you along with me as I explore even more of the incredible geology our planet has to offer.

Scotland might be home, but geology has no borders! 🌎

06/10/2026

🌍🪨 Happy International Geodiversity Day!

I genuinely can’t think of a better place to celebrate than standing amongst a landscape shaped by the incredible geological processes that make our planet what it is.

Geodiversity is the variety of rocks, minerals, fossils, soils, landforms and geological processes around us — and it underpins so much more than we often realise. It shapes our landscapes, influences our ecosystems, provides the raw materials we rely on and records billions of years of Earth’s history.

And this is exactly why I love geology. Wherever I travel, there is another landscape, another rock and another chapter of Earth’s story to discover. 🌋

Today I’m surrounded by volcanic rocks in Iceland, where you can see our planet actively changing right in front of you — a pretty spectacular reminder that geology isn’t just something that happened millions of years ago. It’s still happening today.

Happy Geodiversity Day from Iceland! 🇮🇸🪨🌍

26/09/2026

Why is the grass SO green here? 🌱🪨

Sometimes you can actually see the geology beneath your feet just by looking at the vegetation growing on top of it.

Across the North West Highlands, the pale grey rocks of the Durness Group are mainly carbonate rocks — dolostone and limestone — deposited in warm, shallow seas more than 500 million years ago.

As these rocks weather, they produce soils that are much more calcium- and magnesium-rich and less acidic than the soils developed over many of the surrounding rocks.

And the vegetation notices!

The result can be these incredibly lush, bright green patches of grass sitting directly above the carbonate bedrock — sometimes creating a visible boundary in the landscape between the Durness Group and the more acidic rocks around it.

So when I’m out looking at a landscape, I’m not just looking at the rocks.

I’m looking at the shape of the hills, the drainage, the colour of the ground… and even where the grass is greener. 🌱

Because sometimes the geology is hiding underneath the landscape — but the plants give it away.

24/09/2026

Some more Boudinage and Scourie d***s cutting Lewisian gneiss in my favourite rock outcrop.

23/09/2026

HOW IS THIS NOT PART OF THE STORY?!

I recently went on a boat cruise through the Great Glen — one of the most spectacular landscapes in Scotland — and there was plenty of commentary about the history, the scenery and the places around us…

But almost nothing about the geology.

And I couldn’t believe it, because the geology is the reason this landscape exists in the first place.

Running right through the Great Glen is the Great Glen Fault — a major geological fault that cuts diagonally across Scotland from the west coast towards Inverness.

This ancient zone of weakness has a geological history stretching back hundreds of millions of years, with major movement associated with the tectonic events that assembled Scotland during the Caledonian Orogeny.

Later erosion — particularly during repeated Ice Age glaciations — exploited this weakened, fractured zone, helping carve out the dramatic, remarkably straight glen we see today.

And those long, narrow lochs?

Loch Lochy. Loch Oich. Loch Ness.

They’re all sitting along this enormous geological structure.

So when you cruise through Loch Ness, you’re not just travelling through a beautiful Scottish landscape…

you’re travelling along one of Scotland’s great geological fault zones.

The castles and legends are brilliant — but Scotland’s landscapes have stories that started hundreds of millions of years before humans arrived.

I think it’s time we started telling them. 🪨🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿