The Highlands Controversy - revisited: geo-interpretation lessons from history
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- Опубликовано: 9 сен 2024
- Part of The Shear Zone Channel. Join Rob as he visits key locations, guided by the writings and illustrations of the key players in one of the great arguments in early geology. Together we can see how fieldwork in NW Scotland in the 1850s and 60s created confusion about the geological structure, eventually resolved with the recognition of the Moine Thrust. But this is a prequel - contrasting the interpretations of Murchison with his team-mate Archibald Geikie as they argued with James Nicol... And how these arguments, assumptions and approaches taken by the protagonists offer warnings to those creating geological interpretations - even today....
Brilliant video, Rob. A clear and visual explanation of the historical context before the current accepted interpretation of this region. Took me back to my undergraduate days in the 1970s when I spent time mapping the area and trying to understand these relationships. Keep them coming!
Thanks - glad you enjoyed the film!
Another excellent review of an interesting geological area, it's salutory to consider 170 years later we can see how the protagonists managed to misinterpret the rocks they were looking at mainly because they didn't have the geological knowledge and framework we now have, they were making the best judgements they could at the time - I wonder what the Geological world will make of our interpretations in 170 years time! Great work Rob thank you.
yes - a sobering reflection!
Excellent video! You really keep yourself in a good shape climbing all those hills. Your story reminds me of a similar one albeit in a different location and much later in history. My former teacher Prof. Tollmann was the first to uncover the tectonic origin of the Eastern Alps - the overthrusting of the 'Ost Alpin' stack with its characteristic windows such as the Tauern Window. He too was a great field geologist and putting forward the idea of an entire unit gliding over 150km to the north on a Rauwacke horizon wasn't easy to acknowledge for many geologists of his era.
Yes - interesting - I've not seen much written about the history of science for this example... thank you for tipping me off!
Love these field investigation videos. Thanks Rob. Much love from Indonesia!
thank you!!
Super cool! Looked like a tough week at the office putting this one together... Thanks, Professor.
Thanks - always nice to potteraround the NW Highlands
This is the first analysis of different types of rock layers I've heard since I was in college back in the late 1990's. Great stuff! Got me to thinking in geological terms and understanding how the earth was made! I'm still able to learn! Glad I came across your video! Made a good study for a couple of hours. I love Scotland!
Indeed - lots of great rocks - and geological stories - in Scotland. Thanks for the comment
Excellent presentation, wonderful Geology and Geomorphology, interesting geo history also, nice job, thanks
thanks!
I got left behind on this one. Thank goodness I can watch it again. But absolutely fascinating and I do so want to learn about reading the rocks. Thank you
Hope you can give it another go ....
I can only echo the many comments praising the clarity and unembellished simplicity of your presentation. It all makes for a wonderful watch. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
thanks very much.
Great video and very educational!! Thank you!
thanks
My father's father's ancestors all came from this area and would have walked over all of this landscape. I feel I am touching some family history by watching this. Beautiful country.
That's great! It is indeed wonderful country
Very good exposition of this pivotal moment in the history of geology.
Thank you - yes indeed, this episode sowed the seeds for some wonderful work that followed....
Thanks so much - so clearly and engagingly presented. You’ve really helped me to better my understanding of the landscape and this period in;geological history.
Thank you - glad you liked it!
Fascinating for me that you looked back through the sequence of published maps with the mindsets of the authors. I'm currently reading Stephan Jay Gould's Wonderful Life where he did the same with the Burgess Shale fossil beds. Awareness of the trap of letting interpretation overrule observation is also splendid and well worth considering over and again, a reminder to anyone in an interpretive field. This would be an excellent basis for a week-long field trip.
Indeed so - always worth visiting the "scene of the crime" and to collect evidence for one's self...
Thank you for this interesting video, Mr. Butler! A factual story of two different interpretations explained simply. For me, as a student, it was easy to understand. And thank you for the book and field trip recommendation :)
Thank you - glad you enjoyed the film - and I hope you can get to see the rocks and landscapes for ypurself!
Wonderful presentation, thanks.
thank you
Thank you for a very good video.
The caution about problems caused by collecting information and then fitting a preconceived theory, (one that you are not open to questioning or improving), is important.
If only scientists engaged in tackling the major issues facing humankind would take note and act accordingly
See other posts here. Big differences now are the sizes and diversity of scientists tackling controversial topics .... so although individual can be caught by this, the community at large much less so. Which is not to say that there aren't other issues in play...
Indeed, e.g. climate 'science' is currently shaped to a greater degree by grant funding and political considerations than actual science.
Amazing lesson. Cheers from Brazil
Thanks - it's a bit of a classic!
Excellent explanation of the beautiful diversity of the highland scenery. I've walked and cycled a lot of those locations!
Yes - these sites are well worth a visit
Merci Rob, well done…. and reminding me our stay in Scotland and stops along the Moine thrust
…but also an iconoclastic talk to stunned Alpine geologists in Grenoble in the 1980s, already demonstrating limits of theory vs outcrops interpretation ;-)
All the best
Thank you Claude - hope all's well with you!
Really well constructed video, thanks for putting in what must have been a lot of work, to produce it. Fascinating.
thank you!
Loved that! It took me right back to the OU "Hard rock" course in the early 90s... off to find where I put my copy of Oldroyd's book! ... Found it!
Thank you.
Thanks - glad you found your Oldroyd. Copies can be tricky to come by these days...
@@robbutler2095 I had to be selective when I moved to France but that selection was good!
Thank you
The plover lives at the divide, you can hear it calling as Rob explains the different rock forms at the divide.
The map indicates the name as being 'Glen Laggan'
It has had various versions - Laggan, Logan in past times - essentially the phonetic versions/corruptions from Gaelic ... but modern OS maps leave in un-named...
elsewhere along the divide it's not uncommon to hear cuckoos... earlier in the year... which maybe a comment on protagonists or modern geologists too...
Logan is generally more found relative to Irish Gaelic than the Scots Gaelic Laggan; perhaps also open to historical misinterpretation!
good vid. thanks. I subscribed.
thanks! more films to come....
I have a book signed by Nicol on the geology of north Scotland, I was yet to read t but will make an effort this week i think.
great! always worth getting info from the horse's mouth as it were.
@@robbutler2095 a lucky find on the eBay, I seen some of the diagrams before in that book. Good video sir
Some of this controversy seems like it might have parallels in interpreting the geology of western North America the complex picture presented in Nick Zentner's A to Z Baja BC livestream series. There the big problem seems to be that we have rocks which paleomagnetic constraints showing they must have moved thousands of kilometers from where they formed but no fault or faults upon which said motion can be accommodated. The seismic tomographic data and sedimentary and igneous petrology data also support the moving picture in the context of something like a well developed oceanic volcanic archipelago but leave the picture of how to accommodate the motions and forces observed with observations.
I can't help but wonder what we are missing Robert Hildebrand's work seems particularly insightful in terms of big picture connection but even a few things of his such as what has occurred along the Rocky mountains raise more questions than answers I wonder what future geologists will think about the situation?
At the very least seismic tomography shows that the conventional model of the rocky mountains formation being due to flat slab subduction is bunk since there is no slab in the mantle to cause said flat slab subduction as there isn't an associated fast sheer velocity discontinuity down there which is what subducted slabs look like in seismic tomographic data.
I'll leave others to comment on this - somewhat beyond the scope of this film... though of course, controversy, disagreement and debate are the stuff of science...
Jollygy ??? Geejollygy ???
indeed
Interesting analogies to the climate change theories
Although there were very few geologists able to "repeat the experiment" given the difficulties of accessing NW Scotland in the mid 19th C... nowadays much contested science is very much open to reprodicibility...
My only disappointment in this is that you did not walk the highlands dressed like your historical peers.
ha - have to be benefits from 21stC kit