Aberdeenshire and the Highland Boundary Fault.

On a normal day breakfast is at 8am but there's a few people in my block that get up for a shower (slamming the door as they go) at 6am. Today we've got a long trip to Aberdeenshire so breakfast was at 7:15am. This meant the door slammers were up at 5am! Now after a bad night with my stomach, I did not appreciate this but anyhow we got to the bus and headed north. On the way, we stopped at stracathro services. This has to be the most bizarre place I have ever witnessed. It looked like it hadn't been revamped in 40 years and inside they had a "shop" area that at first glance looked like a jumble sale.

V and I headed to the petrol station to pick up some snacks as the "treat" item in today's packed lunch was crisps that contained milk. Whilst there, in a back of beyond, obscure petrol station/services, I was able to pick up a copy of Practical Reptile Keeping, a magazine that I can never find in Edinburgh.

After our delightful rest break we headed on our way through Aberdeen to the Harbour at Nigg Bay. At Nigg Bay we were able to witness granitic intrusions formed from a partial melting of the country rock, even better, as you walked along the shore you could see the ratio of country to granite increasing, suggesting less melting. I think very slowly this week is starting to make sense.

We then headed on to Skatie Shore near Stonehaven. It was a long trek down a cliff but we got to witness overturned metasediments and even more excitingly - the Highland Boundary Fault! Along with the general observations that we had to make, we were asked to identify the younging direction of the metasediments (they're sediments that have undergone metamorphism). We went to the tutor and enquired as to whether cross stratification would be an identifying feature for younging. We were confidently told "yes but you won't see that here". Oh really? So what's this then. I think you'll find that yes, there is evidence of cross strat. V and I could then rest easy that having shown our tutor something they'd never seen at that location, we wouldn't need to answer any more questions today.

Long trip back to Kindrogan, hard baked potato for dinner and then lab sessions before retiring to the bar.