This blog is written by Angus Miller, a geologist based in Edinburgh. Angus has spent the last 25 years bringing geology to the public through guided walks, tours and education projects. He’s passionate about the importance of geology in all aspects of Scotland’s landscape, history and culture! As Vice-chair of the Scottish Geology Trust, Angus has contributed to several projects, including the ‘Geology Does’ initiative, to showcase the importance of Scottish geology. Feel free to contact Angus on @scottishgeology.
The ‘Geology Does’ campaign celebrates the contribution geology makes to Scotland. It is the country’s bedrock; it tells Scotland’s story; it resources our future.
Why should we celebrate geology?
Here at the Scottish Geology Trust we are really excited about geology! Not just because Scotland’s rocks are amazing (of course they are!) but because of all the obvious and hidden ways in which geology makes Scotland what it is today – including landscape, history, energy use, metals and building materials. Geology is central in creating that essence of ‘place’ which is often very obvious in Scotland: the special nature and feel of any location that comes from landscape, climate and the way people have lived there in the past and present. We think that the role of geology is under-appreciated, leading to missed opportunities that include contributions to the economy (for example in tourism) and also in adapting to climate change.
Geology Does!
The ‘Geology Does’ campaign highlights some of the ways in which geology contributes to Scotland, in a fun, and hopefully engaging way. We want to show how geology underpins Scotland’s landscape, and contributes to Scottish history:
Castles
Scotland is famous for its castles, and it is geology that creates the dramatic sites on which they are built.
Renewable Resources
Where do the resources for a sustainable future come from? The metals for batteries and the sites for renewable energy rely on the right geology, and the trained scientists to understand it.
Wildlife
The campaign also highlights how varied geology makes a range of habitats for wildlife, using the iconic Bass Rock as an example – this island is one of many in the Firth of Forth, and creates an ideal nesting site for gannets.
Jewellery and Culture
The Geology Does campaign highlights the Scottish crown jewels (the King’s Bling!) as an example of how precious metals and gemstones from Scotland and around the world are used in jewellery and make important contributions to culture.
The Bedrock of New Ideas
Scotland has amazing geology, an incredible wide range of sedimentary, igneous and metamorphic rocks formed in varying conditions over billions of years. We like to claim that Scotland is the home of geology, and certainly different parts of this geologic story have contributed massively to the development of ideas in geoscience. One of our heroes is James Hutton, the Scot who discovered the concept of ‘deep time’. Living in Edinburgh in the 1700s, he was the first person to clearly explain how rocks contained evidence of past processes and showed that the processes of nature have operated over vast time scales. Hutton was helped by the varied geology of Scotland, where clear examples demonstrate how the Earth works. Since Hutton’s time, geologists have found fossils that explain key stages in the evolution of plants and animals, as well as rocks that illustrate how mountains form and the scale of large volcanic eruptions.
Expanding our understanding of Earth and its future
Considering all this maybe makes you think, “so what?”. Yes, Scotland has great geology but it is there, unchanging, as a foundation to human life. Does it really matter to the everyday concerns of the people who live in these landscapes? Geology just creates the stage on which the story of Scotland plays out.
But geology isn’t just about rocks! It is also about the processes of the Earth . James Hutton realised that the processes of the Earth are ongoing – for him, there was “no vestige of a beginning, no prospect of an end”. Crucially for humanity, geology also matters for the future. And our societies need an understanding of the big picture and an appreciation of how human activities are changing Earth processes. We need scientists and engineers that understand these processes to work on the details of mitigating climate change; adapting to changing sea level and weather patterns that will impact our coastlines, agriculture, nature and people in the coming decades and centuries.
So does it matter? We think geology does!
Find all these images, and more about the Geology Does campaign, on the Scottish Geology Trust website: https://www.scottishgeologytrust.org/
Get in touch with the Scottish Geology Trust on their socials: