Across the ocean in
Avalonia, Did you ever wonder how the world shakes?
Go find a map of merry old Scotland.
Okay, now then you have a
good look.
Glasgow is not quite in the
Scottish Highland,
Another question; was it
close enough, for some giant snakes?
North of Glasgow is a rugged,
once hostile region, the Highland;
for Scotland is at the
north end of the—British United Kingdom.
An intriguing feature of
geography,
Inverness and Fort William connected by a
straight line; in Nature’s Kingdom;
along this line lies Loch
Ness, the second largest most famous lake in Scotland.
Loch Ness highly elongated in
its shape,
Is a series of valleys,
known collectively as-- Great Glen.
Cutting right across Scotland
from one coast to the other;
bisecting the craggy
highlands rising on either side, rather striking, the Great Glen.
From this true fact there
is no escape.
There in the Earth's crust;
is a major fault; is one wise to long terry?
It does not stop in Scotland;
the land north-west has
slipped northwards, relative to the land south-east.
So as well, the fault runs through
Ireland
straight through the bay
near Londonderry.
Okay,
go even further afield; let us look at north-western Europe.
The
mountains of Scotland; though it may seem strange,
that whole big chain running
up the back of Norway;
with a tiny bit of imagination, them, you can view,
continuing across the North
Sea.
Scotland and Scandinavia
are part of the same mountain range.
Produced
during the Caledonian orogeny; an immense range of mountains,
Caledonia is the ancient
Roman name for Scotland,
While orogeny is a technical
term combining the Greek oros, meaning mountains,
and genus, meaning
generation;
though to you the words they sound strange;
Takes generation to create
a new or newfound land.
Generation
of the Caledonia and Scandinavia mountains occurred roughly 400 million years
ago.
At that time, there was an
ocean known as the Iapetus.
Don't go looking for it on a modern map,
because it doesn't exist anymore.
The continents were so
different, that we can not, sensibly,
refer to them with names familiar to us,
furthermore.
The continent of Laurentia,
on one side of the Iapetus.
On
the other side were two landmasses known as Baltica and Avalonia.
The movements of plate
tectonics slowly- but inevitably,
caused the shrinkage of the Iapetus Ocean.
Laurentia moved closer to
Baltica and Avalonia,
until the fateful period of history;
when these continents collided.
In exactly the same way as
the collision of India with Asia has more recently produced the crumpling of
the Earth's crust that we know as the Himalaya Mountains.
Baltica
and Avalonia were essentially the forerunners of what is now Europe.
The mountains of the Caledonian orogeny can be
seen today, weathered and eroded into less spectacular peaks than the Himalayan
heights which they may well have reached shortly after their birth, running
down the spine of Scandinavia, across Scotland, and...
What became of Laurentia?
Look
west...Look for mountains.
The
Appalachian Mountains.
That enormous range of mountains running
diagonally across eastern North America. You can mentally extend them
north-east, up through New Brunswick, across the Gulf of St Lawrence, across Newfoundland, and then...
you are forced to a stop by the Atlantic
Ocean.
Or are you…
Imagine the ocean isn't
there.
Slide Newfoundland across
to nestle next to Ireland.
Then the Appalachian Mountains can continue;
right through the Scottish Highlands,
and on into Norway.
We were looking for
Laurentia.
We've found it.
Laurentia is North America.© Al (Alex-Alexander) D Girvan. All rights reserved.
