Product Description

Scotland's mountains and glens retain the secrets of the long and frequently violent geological history that has gone into their making. Volcanoes have played a major role in the creation of Scotland and while the youngest, a mere sixty million years old, were responsible for much of the scenic splendour of the Inner Hebrides, the rocks composing many of the famous Scottish landforms as, for example, those of Glencoe and the Edinburgh district are also the direct result of volcanism.

Illustrated in colour throughout, Volcanoes and the Making of Scotland explores back in time from the most recent examples to volcanoes of the obscure Precambrian times which left their signature in the ancient rocks of the far north-west. Geographically the book ranges across all of Scotland from Shetland to the Borders. Reflecting current research into Scotland's geology, the author also speculates as to the climate, geography and ecology of the long-gone landscapes in which the volcanoes of differing ages were created and destroyed.

The book is extensively illustrated with about 130 maps, sketches, cross-sections and photographs and relates what can currently be seen in the worn-down remains of Scotland's old volcanoes to active analogues around the world. This book vividly brings life and meaning to what the layman would otherwise regard as cold and incomprehensible rocks.

The author is emeritus professor of petrology in the University of Edinburgh who has worked and travelled widely in Scotland over the past fifty years.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #243190 in Books
• Published on: 2004-09-30
• Format: Illustrated
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 247 pages

About the Author
Brian Upton is emeritus professor of petrology in the University of Edinburgh who has worked and travelled widely in Scotland over the past fifty years.

Customer Reviews

Exciting story, pity about the fuzzy volcanoes
This is an account of the contribution of volcanic action to Scotland's landscapes, written by a specialist for non-specialists. Accordingly there is an introduction to vulcanology which anyone who knows a bit about the subject can skip. There are also explanations of geological terms, but as these are scattered through the text rather than listed at the end (though there is an index for them), they can be irritatingly slow to find if you want to refresh your memory - as you probably will, since the author can't help getting at least mildly technical in many places.
Unlike most geology books, which start in deep time and work their way towards the present, this book does the reverse, starting with the most recent (Tertiary) volcanoes of the West, which are naturally the best preserved, and working back to the really ancient stuff. In one way this is a good idea, since it's much easier to identify the more recent features. In another it isn't, owing to the unavoidable fact that the landscape developed in reverse order, and to understand the causes of a phenomenon you really have to know what happened before. This leads to some clumsy cross-referencing.
Having grouched a bit, I have to say that for an amateur geologist like me the book is pitched just right. I read it practically at a sitting and it makes me yearn to go and see some more of the relevant landscapes. The only big disappointment is the extremely poor quality of the colour photos. Some are so fuzzy that the feature they are supposed to illustrate is scarcely visible. In these days of fast and easy colour reproduction this is really inexcusable, especially in view of the substantial price tag.