Deserts and Dinosaurs
During the next 70 million years, the tropical swamps disappeared to be replaced by deserts as 'Scotland' continued its slow northward wandering. High ground still occupied much of the country. Only isolated areas of red sandstone survive to record the climatic conditions which existed during Permian and Triassic times. Scotland remained in near-equatorial latitudes, in a similar position to sub-Saharan Africa today and, in the main, desert conditions prevailed. Many of the fine red sandstone buildings that exist in Scotland owe their origin to these 260 million-year-old desert sands preserved in the Mauchline and Dumfries areas, from where they have been quarried extensively during the last two centuries.
Desert conditions also gripped the Moray area during Triassic times. The remains of small reptiles and their fossilised trackways have been recovered from the sandstones around Elgin - some from a working quarry where prompt action was required to save them from the crusher!
Then came a flood of biblical proportions as the sea level rose to inundate much of Scotland. This dramatic event marked the beginning of the Jurassic period. Erosion has removed all but a few remnants of the carpet of marine sands and muds which were laid down under these rising seas. Over time, sea levels fell and the emergent land was rapidly recolonised. Among the new occupants of Skye were flesh- and plant-eating dinosaurs, now preserved in the Jurassic sediments found along the east coast of the Trotternish Peninsula. Cetiosaurus, a plant-eating dinosaur, stood 10m in height and is thought to be a member of the Sauropod family.
For reasons not fully understood, but probably related to a catastrophic meteor strike on Earth around 65 million years ago, the dinosaur dynasty died out, never to return in Scotland or, indeed, anywhere else on the planet.