VISIT BREADALBANE

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Rock and roll

The wildlife and scenery of Breadalbane owe much to its turbulent geology.

Once these hills formed part of a chain of mountains, as high as the Alps are today. They rose from the seabed more than 400 million years ago as two ancient continents drifted towards each other, thrusting the land skywards. Scotland was part of a massive continent, which included North America and Norway.

The forces of mountain building were so huge that they flipped the layers of rock right over. The oldest layers buried the youngest. You can see this in the hills, where ancient base-rich rocks have been exposed. They provide ideal growing conditions for carpets of grasses and alpine plants. Learn more about the area’s fascinating natural history at the Ben Lawers Visitor Centre.

The other major influence on this landscape was ice. Around 2 million years ago the earth’s climate cooled and icy conditions gripped northern Europe. Vast sheets of ice scoured the land, shattering rocks and carving out deep glens. The last ice sheets melted just 10,000 years ago. Look closer and you’ll find other signs of the ice. The snaking ridges on the floor of Glen Dochart are eskers, gravelly shadows of glacial rivers. Look out for isolated lochans, known to geologists as kettle holes, where blocks of ice ran aground leaving deep impressions in the soft sediments.

The landscape is continually changing. A rock fall in Glen Ogle brought an abrupt end to the railway service in the 1960s. Heavy rainfall and melting snow alter the courses of streams and rivers. Landslips scattered across the hillsides show how fragile the surface landscape can be.