Scotland’s Greatest Ice Age

Talk by Emeritus Professor Ian Fairchild, University of Birmingham

Abstract:
The Port Askaig Formation were the first Precambrian rocks interpreted as glacial in origin, anywhere in the world. Now we know that Neoproterozoic glaciation was global in distribution. The exposures of the Port Askaig Formation are also the best permanent exposures of glacigenic deposits of any age in the British Isles and have attracted much international interest. Over a decade of study by an interdisciplinary team have led to many new insights that will be presented in a Memoir of the Geological Society of London. There is an informal proposal that the base of the Cryogenian geological System should be located here on the Garvellach Islands of western Scotland. 

Ian Fairchild’s contributions to Neoproterozoic geology have focused mainly on Svalbard and Greenland, as well as Scotland. In relation to the Port Askaig rocks he has sought to understand the association of dolomite with glacigenic facies and the significance of the glacial record both on the Garvellachs and the Isle of Islay.