Drifting Continents
The geological story of Scotland is recorded in its bedrock and is also the logical starting point from which to describe Scotland's natural heritage. Planet Earth formed after the Big Bang, with our present atmosphere, land and sea derived from the molten core of the primordial planet. Since these beginnings, continental land masses have moved across the globe, coming together and parting in a multitude of configurations. Rock masses, hundreds of square kilometres in size, broke away from the main continental areas and became welded to adjacent landmasses, linking areas which had no previous association. This process of continental drift created a series of patchwork landmasses, with Scotland forming a small part of a major continent which included North America and Greenland, known as Laurentia. At this time over 500 million years ago, Scotland was separated from England and Wales by an ocean wider than the present-day Atlantic. The Iapetus Ocean closed around 410 million years ago uniting Scotland and England forever! Over time, this landmass has moved through all the Earth's climatic zones, only to split asunder around 60 million years ago when the North Atlantic was formed.
Scotland has drifted across the surface of the planet like a great Ark, constructed of rock rather than wood, and driven not by the tides and winds, but by the movement of plates on the Earth's surface. It carried a varied cargo of plants and animals. These early forms of life had to adapt to the ever-changing environmental conditions - or die out. Evidence for deep oceans, scalding deserts and tropical rainforests are all to be found in Scotland's record of the rocks. And so, the early inhabitants evolved to fit these environmental niches.