Original Article
The North West Highlands UNESCO Global Geopark: Oldest Fossils in Europe
Authors
Abstract
The North West Highlands Geopark is probably one of the largest geoparks anywhere, comprising 2000 km2 of remote, mountainous and coastal terrain. It was the first European Geopark to be recognised in Scotland in 2004 and was designated by UNESCO as a Global Geopark in 2015. Since then, it has been very successful in delivering projects to support sustainable community and economic development based on the region’s Geoheritage and giving informative introductions to the geology, wildlife, landscapes, and human heritage of the region. The geological importance resides in the incredible age of the Lewisian rocks, which are some of the most ancient in Europe, and the organic-walled microfossils of the Torridonian rocks, amongst the oldest evidence of life in the continent of Europe, and possibly the oldest evidence of complex (eukaryotic) non-marine life in the world.
Read the full text of the articleKeywords
Main Subjects
References
Amor K, Hesselbo SP, Porcelli D, Thackrey S & Parnell J (2008). A Precambrian proximal ejecta blanket from Scotland. Geology. 36:303–306.
Ballin Smith B (Ed.) (2020). ARO40: Achnahaird Sands by Achiltibuie, Highland GUARD Archaeology Ltd Online: https://www.archaeologyreportsonline.com/PDF/ARO40_Achnahaird.pdf
Batey C & Paterson C (2012). A Viking burial at Balnakeil, Sutherland. In Reynolds A and Webster L (eds.) Early Medieval Art and Archaeology in the Northern World: Studies in Honour of James Graham-Campbell. Series: Northern World (58) (pp. 631-659). Leiden, Netherlands: Brill.
Battison L (2012). Exceptional preservation of cells in phosphate and the early evolution of the biosphere. PhD thesis, University of Oxford.
Battison L& Brasier MD (2012). Remarkably preserved prokaryote and eukaryote microfossils within 1 Ga-old lake phosphates of the Torridon Group, NW Scotland. Precambrian Research. 196–197:204–217.
Brasier AT, Culwick T, Battison L, Callow RHT & Brasier MD (2017). Evaluating evidence from the Torridonian Supergroup (Scotland, UK) for eukaryotic life on land in the Proterozoic. Geological Society, London, Special Publications. 448:121–144.
Brasier AT, Dennis PF, Still J, Parnell J, Culwick T, Brasier MD, Wacey D, Bowden SA, Crook S, Boyce AJ & Muirhead DK (2019). Detecting ancient life: Investigating the nature and origin of possible stromatolites and associated calcite from a one billion year old lake. Precambrian Research. 328:309–320.
Callow RHT, Battison L & Brasier MD (2011). Diverse microbially induced sedimentary structures from 1 Ga lakes of the Diabaig Formation, Torridon Group, North West Scotland. Sedimentary Geology. 239:117–128.
Cavers G & Hudson G (Eds) (2010). Assynt’s Hidden Lives: An archaeological survey of the Parish. AOC Archaeology Group and Historic Assynt. Retrieved from https://librarylink.highland.gov.uk/LLFiles/186257/full_186257.pdf
Cloud PE & Germs A (1971). New pre-Paleozoic nannofossils from the Stoer Formation (Torridonian), NW Scotland. Geological Society of America Bulletin. 82:3469–2474.
Diver WL & Peat CJ (1979). On the interpretation and classification of Precambrian organic-walled microfossils. Geology. 7:401–404.
Gordon E (2016). Geoheritage case study: geotourism and geoparks in Scotland. In Hose TA., Geoheritage and Geotourism: A European Perspective (pp. 261–268), The Boydell Press, Woodbridge.
Kinnaird TC, Prave AR, Kirkland CL, Horstwood M, Parrish R & Batchelor RAB (2007). The late Mesoproterozoic–early Neoproterozoic tectonostratigraphic evolution of NW Scotland: the Torridonian revisited. Journal of the Geological Society. 164:541–551.
Lebeau LE & Ielpi A (2017). Fluvial channel‐belts, floodbasins, and aeolian ergs in the Precambrian Meall Dearg Formation (Torridonian of Scotland): inferring climate regimes from pre‐vegetation clastic rock records. Sedimentary Geology. 357:53–71.
Lebeau LE, Ielpi A, Krabbendam M & Davis WJ (2020). Detrital-zircon provenance of a Torridonian fluvial-aeolian sandstone: The 1.2 Ga Meall Dearg Formation, Stoer Group (Scotland). Precambrian Research. 346:105822.
McMahon WJ & Davies NS (2018). High-energy flood events recorded in the Mesoproterozoic Meall Dearg Formation, NW Scotland; their recognition and implications for the study of pre-vegetation alluvium. Journal of the Geological Society. 175:13–32.
Noffke N, Gerdes G, Klenke T & Krumbein WE (2001). Microbially induced sedimentary structures – a new category within the classification of primary sedimentary structures. Journal of Sedimentary Research. 71:649–656.
Oldroyd DR (1990). The Highland Controversy: Constructing Geological Knowledge through Fieldwork in Nineteenth-Century Britain. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
Park RG, Stewart AD & Wright DT (2002). The Hebridean terrane. In Trewin NH (ed.) Geology of Scotland (4th edn, pp. 45–80). Geological Society of London.
Parnell J, Boyce AJ, Mark D, Bowden S &Spinks S (2010) Early oxygenation of the terrestrial environment during the Mesoproterozoic. Nature. 468:290– 293.
Parnell J, Mark D, Fallick TE, Boyce A & Thackrey S (2011). The age of the Mesoproterozoic Stoer Group sedimentary and impact deposits, NW Scotland. Journal of the Geological Society of London. 168:349–358.
Peach BN, Horne J, Gunn W, Clough CT, Hinxman LW & Teall JJH (1907). The Geological Structure of the North-west Highlands of Scotland. Memoir of the Geological Survey of Great Britain.
Prave AR (2002). Life on land in the Proterozoic: evidence from the Torridonian rocks of North West Scotland. Geology. 30:811–814.
Rainbird RH, Hamilton MA & Young GM (2001). Detrital zircon geochronology and provenance of the Torridonian, NW Scotland. Journal of the Geological Society of London. 158:15–27.
Rider M & Harrison P (2019) Hutton’s Arse: 3 Billion Years of Extraordinary Geology in Scotland’s Northern Highlands. Dunedin Academic Press, Edinburgh, 240 pp.
Selley RC (1965). Diagnostic characters of fluviatile sediments of the Torridonian Formation (Pre-Cambrian) of north west Scotland. Journal of Sedimentary Petrology. 35:366–380.
Simms MJ (2015). The Stac Fada impact ejecta deposit and the Lairg Gravity Flow: evidence for a buried Precambrian impact crater in Scotland? Proceedings of the Geologists’ Association. 126:742–761.
Stewart AD (1969). Torridonian rocks of Scotland Reviewed. In: Kay, M, (Editor). North Atlantic - Geology and Continental Drift: A Symposium. Memoir of the American Association of Petroleum Geology. 12:595–608.
Stewart AD (1975). Torridonian rocks of western Scotland. In Harris AL and others (editors). Precambrian. Special Report of the Geological Society of London. 6:43–51.
Stewart AD (1991). Geochemistry, provenance and palaeoclimate of the Sleat and Torridon Groups in Skye. Scottish Journal of Geology. 27:81–95.
Stewart AD (2002). The Later Proterozoic Torridonian Rocks of Scotland: Their Sedimentology, Geochemistry and Origin. Geological Society Memoir. 24. The Geological Society, London, 130 pp.
Stewart AD & Donnellan NCB (1992). Geochemistry and provenance of red sandstones in the Upper Proterozoic Torridon Group in Scotland. Scottish Journal of Geology. 28:143–153.
Strachan RA, Alsop GI, Ramezani RE, Frazer IM, Burns IM & Holdsworth RE (2020). Patterns of Silurian deformation and magmatism during sinistral oblique convergence, northern Scpttish Caledonides. Journal of the Geological Society 177:893–910.
Strother P& Wellman C (2016). Palaeoecology of a billion-year-old non-marine cyanobacterium from the Torridon Group and Nonsuch Formation. Palaeontology 59:89–108.
Stüeken EE, Bellefroid EJ, Prave A, Asael D, Planavsky NJ & Lyons TW (2017). Not so non-marine? Revisiting the Stoer Group and the Mesoproterozoic biosphere. Geochemical Perspectives Letters. 3: 221–229.
Turnbull MJM, Whitehouse MJ & Moorbath S (1996). New isotopic age determinations for the Torridonian, NW Scotland. Journal of the Geological Society, London. 153:955–964.
Visit Scotland (2004) Scotland’s first geopark. Visit Scotland (archived 2008, https://web.archive.org/web/20081121060529/http://www.greentourism.org.uk/Default.aspx.LocID-008new19l.RefLocID-008015003.Lang-EN.htm).
Wacey D, Saunders M, Roberts M, Menon S, Green L, Kong C, Culwick T, Strother P & Brasier MD (2014). Enhanced cellular preservation by clay minerals in 1-billion-year-old-lakes. Scientific Reports. 4:5841. https://doi.org/10.1038/srep05841
Wellman CH & Strother PK (2015). The terrestrial biota prior to the origin of land plants (embryophytes): a review of the evidence. Palaeontology. 58:601–627.
Williams GE (2001) Neoproterozoic (Torridonian) alluvial fan succession, northwest Scotland, and its tectonic setting and provenance. Geological Magazine. 138:471–494.
Williams GE & Foden J (2011). A unifying model for the Torridon Group (early Neoproterozoic), NW Scotland: product of post-Grenvillian extensional collapse. Earth-Science Reviews. 108:34– 49.
Zhang Z (1982) Upper Proterozoic microfossils from the Summer Isles, NW Scotland. Palaeontology. 25:443–460.
Zhang Z, Diver W &Grant PR (1981). Microfossils from the Aultbea Formation, Torridon Group, on Tanera Beg, Summer Isles. Scottish Journal of Geology. 17:149–154.
Additional Information
Geoconservation Research (Geoconserv. Res.)
Volume 4 (2021)
Issue 1, June 2021 - Paleontological Heritage and Geoconservation in the UNESCO European Geoparks (I), edited by Dan Grigorescu, Michael Benton, Vachik Hairapetian
Page Numbers: 25-42
Article views: 15
Share: