Geology Reference
In-Depth Information
The Ardnamurchan A¬air
Unfortunately I have so many irons in the fire at the
moment that there is practically no fire.
Groucho Marx
Ardnamurchan, on the south west coast of Scotland, is the
remains of an ancient volcano. Its unique rock formations open
a window into the interior of the Earth and provide geologists
with a singular opportunity to observe the processes, now frozen
in time, that occur deep within the crust and which have been
slowly brought to the surface over the last sixty million years.
In 1930, when James Richey of the British Geological Survey
published his completed geological map of Ardnamurchan
confirming that it was an ancient volcano, it caused much
interest amongst geologists. Consequently, the following year,
Richey agreed to run a field trip so that those interested could
look at the volcano in some detail and augment their under-
standing of the Earth's interior.
Kingsley Dunham drove his professor all the way from
Durham to Ardnamurchan in his two-seater Morris Cowley.
Maggie never accompanied Arthur on these trips because their
son Geo¬rey was still only small and needed someone at home
to look after him, but as the new fashion of the time was to grow
tomatoes, the students joked that the real reason she stayed
behind was to water the precious tomato plants. The truth was
