Geln Gairn

We had a 2 hour coach drive this morning through the Cairngorms, past Balmoral (we saw the turrets) before reaching an area called Glen Gairn. Unfortunately I slept through most of the scenery, though I did wake up as our coach struggled to reach the top of the overpass at Glenshee (we had to stop until the engine cooled down).

Glen Gairn is an interesting area where you can see several different types of igneous rock (all types of granite) overlain by a deformed country rock with a clean contact and no sign of cooling/baking at the margin. We were able to deduce that we were at the top of a pluton (body of magma) that had been a similar temperature to the country rock at intrusion. The country rock had been deformed twice prior to the intrusion. Pegmatites had formed in the final stages of crystalisation from chemicals in a solution of volatiles (yes, I?m completely backing up my field notebook log with notes here).

Thankfully on the journey home I was able to stay awake and appreciate the scenery. I think I'm in love with the Highlands. They are truly beautiful. I've never been to the highlands before, I've never even seen pictures and they took my breath away as we passed through deep valleys with undulating glacial deposits and erratics. I must come back here one day.

After dinner, which again, could have been better co-ordinated (veg and potatoes brought well before the protein and the vegetarians had their meal served up on a side plate) we were in to the labs to examine slides of the rocks we saw in the field. From the microscope work and plotting chemical compostions on a triangle graph (which I finally understand how to use) we were able to deduce the order the rock samples had cooled in. I impressed myself, I was even able to answer questions about it.

Tomorrow we're in the labs all day and the graphs get a whole stage scarier than triangular graphs. Tomorrow we get log-log graphs which don't have even gaps between the scales! Whilst I can access the wifi from the lounge and have full mobile reception, I'm just not getting the time to upload blips. Maybe tomorrow on our lunch break I will.

Today's photo is the River Clunie where it passes through thr village of Braemar