Welcome to our March newsletter.

 

Changes to HGS Committee

Our Chair Alan Thompson and committee members Andy Leggat, Ann Reynolds and Edward Acton all retired from the HGS committee at the AGM. We thank them all for their input over the years.

We held the first meeting of the newly elected trustees/committee members on March 16th. As decided at the AGM, the committee members are Anne Cockroft, Gary Eisenhauer, Rhona Fraser, John Hawco, Kathryn Logan, Andy Moffat, Dave Longstaff, Martin Smith and Alison Wright. At the meeting John Hawco and Dave Longstaff agreed to be Co-chairs, with each contributing according to their strengths. Kathryn Logan will continue as Treasurer and Anne Cockroft will continue as Secretary. Rhona Fraser will take on responsibility for membership matters later in the year.

The summer field trip programme is largely in place, and the new committee is starting to put together the next winter lecture programme. If you have any places you would like to visit on field trips or suggestions for leaders or speakers please let the committee know at highlandgeologicalsociety@gmail.com

 

HGS field trips 2026

Wed 22 nd April: Lochindorb. Dr Martin Smith.

Mon 11 th May: Inverness museum storeroom tour 1330-1530. Andy Moffat.

Sat 23 rd May: Portsoy. Prof John Parnell.

Sun 28 th June: Strathnairn. Ann and Peter Reynolds.

Sun 16 th Aug: Quarrywood. Dave Longstaff.

Sat 19 th Sept: Tarbatness/Portmahomack. Dr Steven Andrews.

Hermitage/Dunkeld. Dr Martin Smith. Tbc, probably October.

 

Wednesday 22 nd April: Lochindorb. Dr Martin Smith.

The first excursion of 2026 is to the Lochindorb area to look again at cover-basement relations in the Neoproterozoic rocks of the Central Grampian Highlands. 

The geology at Loch an t-Sithein south of Lochindorb was first described by Piasecki and Temperley in the 1988 Moine Excursion Guide. But it was only in the mid-2000s that the area was remapped by BGS and the complexity of the Grampian Shear Zone and the apparent interleaving of basement and ‘cover’ rocks reassessed. This excursion will make an east-west traverse across the area from gneissose to migmatitic metasediments of the Badenoch Group (basement) separated from the Grampian Group (cover) by a 1 km wide zone of folded and highly sheared rocks displaying a range of rock types including, quartzites, metagabbros, garnet amphibolites, granite pegmatites, banded non-gneissose rocks and mylonites. Contacts are difficult to find and complicated by the intrusion of numerous thin late granite sheets. The traverse ends in relatively undeformed banded psammites and semipelites of the Grampian Group.

Walking will be over rough heathery and rocky terrain. Unfortunately, there are no tracks so boots and walking poles required.

 

Monday 11 th May: Inverness Museum Storeroom tours, 1330-1530. Andy Moffat.

Andy is cataloguing geological specimens in Inverness Museum and he has agreed to host small groups into the museum storerooms on Monday afternoons. This will be a ‘behind the scenes’ tour but groups will be limited to 6 HGS members: Andy and 5 guests. The first tour has been arranged for Monday 11 th May, 1330-1530

 

Saturday 23 rd May: Prof John Parnell and Dr Joe Armstrong, University of Aberdeen.

The Portsoy Shear Zone (or Lineament) is a major, kilometres-wide tectonic feature in Northeast Scotland, centred on Portsoy. This long-lived feature represents a zone of intense deformation and sheared rock separating distinct geological structural domains within the Dalradian rocks. The zone can be traced southwards towards the Cabrach and into Deeside.

We plan to examine different lithologies along the Portsoy coastline, which include anorthosite, serpentinite (the famous Portosy ‘marble’), and the sheared gabbro within the shear zone. These rocks have recently been identified as the closest terrestrial analogues for material found on the Moon ( https://www.abdn.ac.uk/news/24521/ ). We will also look at pegmatite outcrops and discuss their link with battery metals.

Meet at Portsoy old harbour. We will then condense cars and drive to the Old Swimming Pool to look at the different lithologies, including sulphidic pelites, to the west of the harbour. We will work our way east, returning to the harbour to visit the Marble shop.

 

Sunday 28 th June: Strathnairn: Ann and Peter Reynolds, HGS.

Evidence for the Ice Age in Upper Strathnairn. There is a large variety of evidence for the last ice age in the area to the south west of the A9 at Daviot. Classic structures such as roches moutonées, eskers, kettle holes and erratic boulders are obvious. There are also outflow terraces, water escape channels, boulder trains, kames and kame terraces as well as one of only two known Jokulhlaups in the UK. This trip will try to view as much as possible during the day, rather than providing exhaustive coverage of the subject. It will be suitable for all levels of geological expertise.

 

Sunday 16 th Aug: Quarrywood: Dave Longstaff, HGS.

Quarrywood, a wooded hill 1 mile west of Elgin, has 6 large quarries and numerous small excavations and for about 250 years has provided building stone for the local area. A few quarries show small exposures of an unconformity separating the Upper Old Red Sandstone rocks, which comprise the bulk of the hill, to exposures of the lowermost beds of Upper Permian rocks.

In Cutties Hillock Quarry, at the top of the hill, around 150 years ago fossil reptiles were found only a few feet above rock layers where fossil fish scales occurred. Were these rocks the same age? This was a question which interested many Victorian geologists and drew scientists from all over the UK to Quarry Wood. A clue can be found in Rosebrae Quarry where a gap in the geological record can be examined, an unconformity spanning roughly 100 million years.

 If there is interest we can also see evidence from the last ice-age: glacial striae in small exposures of rocks created by the last ice sheets to cover Moray.

 

Saturday 19 th Sept: Tarbat Ness/Portmahomack: Dr Steven Andrews, University of Leeds.

Lakes, deserts and life in the Devonian of Tarbet Ness Peninsula.

The rocks of the Tarbat Ness peninsula contain a record of the opening and eventual filling of the Devonian Orcadian Basin. This huge basin, which formed in the lee of the Himalayan-scale Caledonian mountain chain, stretched from the Moray Firth to Shetland. Early in its history a series of lakes linked northwards during more humid climatic periods, hosting a diverse range of early fish, and in drier periods these lakes dried out entirely undergoing prolonged desiccation. Extensive river systems eventually began to fill the Orcadian Basin, and during drier periods these sands were reworked into extensive dune fields. Life still persisted here with some of the earliest land-dwelling animals (tetrapods) leaving tracks between the sand dunes. This trip will examine evidence for the changing environments and the life they held through the Devonian, visiting sites near Hilton of Cadboll and Tarbat Ness.

 

Items of interest and geological websites

James Hutton Tricentenary

The SGT crowdfunding exercise to instigate a Siccar Point geology trail with information boards and better access to Siccar Point has now finished and has been a great success with construction of the display area underway.This website gives all of the details about forthcoming activities in celebration of James Hutton’s 300th birthday    https://james-hutton.org/tercentenary/

SGT Geosite and SGT GeoGuide.

The SGT Geosite project continues apace with many Scottish SSSIs and GCR sites now covered with a photographic record. https://geosites.scottishgeologytrust.org/

The accompanying SGT GeoGuide website now has scanned versions of an incredible 173 publications including all GCR volumes, a huge resource: https://geoguide.scottishgeologytrust.org/

Hugh Miller Cottage Museum 

https://www.nts.org.uk/visit/places/hugh-millers-birthplace/

Friends of Hugh Miller

A link to the Friends of High Miller website  https://www.thefriendsofhughmiller.org.uk/

The Scottish Geology Trust

http://www.scottishgeologytrust.org/

Other Scottish geological societies:

Aberdeen Geological Society

http://www.aberdeengeolsoc.org.uk/

Edinburgh Geological Society

https://www.edinburghgeolsoc.org/

Glasgow Geological Society

https://geologyglasgow.org.uk/

Open University Geology Society

https://ougs.org/

 

CONTACT INFORMATION:

Co-Chairs John Hawco, Dave Longstaff highlandgeologicalsociety@gmail.com

Secretary: Anne Cockroft hgssec@gmail.com

Treasurer: Kathryn Logan treas4hgs@gmail.com