Course leaders: Jon Merritt and Dr Tom Bradwell

Jon Merritt has worked on the Quaternary deposits in the Highlands area for many years, has led excursions for the Quaternary Research Association, six previous Quaternary training courses for BGS, and has published several research papers.

Tom Bradwell has joined BGS recently having completed a PhD at Edinburgh University studying glacial deposits in Iceland. He is mapping presently in the NW Highlands. The course is based mainly on the ground covered by Sheet 84W (Fortrose and Eastern Inverness) for which a new 1:50 000 drift map and a detailed memoir have been published in the past decade.

The venue

Few districts in the British Isles can rival the Inverness area for the range of Quaternary landforms and deposits that occur within easy travelling distance of one another. The area is particularly well suited for teaching purposes because it abounds with fine examples of a wide range of glacial features and glacigenic deposits. It also contains good evidence of Late-glacial and Postglacial sea level change, two internationally important interglacial sites and is within easy reach of the famous Parallel Roads of Glen Roy and other noteworthy Quaternary localities in Northern Scotland. Upland periglacial phenomena can be studied in the Cairngorms or the Nevis range.The course is presently based at the Dulnain Bridge Outdoor Centre near Grantown-on-Spey. The accommodation is of bunk-house style with full board including packed lunches. Travel during the course is by minibus and landrover. Mirror stereoscopes with stands and bases are provided for air photo interpretation.

Duration and number of participants

The course lasts 9 days, including one weekend. A maximum of 16 participants can attend each course.

Course objectives:

• The recognition, description, interpretation and mapping of glacigenic and glacially conditioned sediment-landform assemblages using air photos and 'rapid' walk-over surveying methods.
• The establishment of stratigraphical successions in order to decipher sequences of events.
• The course concentrates on deposits found in the 'upland glaciated' and 'upland periglacial' provinces, but the thick glacigenic sequences studied are not unlike those of the glaciated lowlands of Britain.

Specific objectives:

• Application of air photo interpretation to drift mapping.
• Field demonstration of a wide range of glacigenic deposits and landforms.
• Application of the BGS litho-morpho-genetic symbol scheme to map sediment/landform assemblages.
• Application of the 'Miall' sedimentary facies scheme in describing glacigenic sediments.
• Establishing glacigenic stratigraphies and interpreting histories of glaciation and deglaciation from the geological record.
• Individual mapping exercise.

Special topics include:

Glacial rafts at Clava, the history of the Parallel Roads of Glen Roy (including landslides, toppling and possible neotectonic faulting) the mapping, description and interpretation of morainic deposits (moundy glacial deposits), glacitectonic structures, interglacial deposits.

Contact Training for course fees, scheduling and availability