SLIOCH - BEINN A' MHUINIDH (NH 004688 - NH 061628)
This area is proposed as a new GCR site. Situated on the north side of Loch
Maree, the southern flanks of Slioch and Beinn a' Mhuinidh display in cross-section,
the structural relationships between Lewisian, Torridonian and Cambrian strata
of the foreland together with the far-travelled Lewisian and Torridonian of
the Kinlochewe Thrust Sheet. The highlights are:
- Laxfordian thrust zone in the Lewisian - carrying orthogneiss onto metasediments
and metabasics.
- Palaeo-landscape on the sub-Torridonian unconformity - arguably the most
dramatic such surface in the British Isles.
- The Kinlochewe Thrust - exposed above Gleann Bianasdail - one of the major
basement-carrying structures in NW Scotland.
- Kinlochewe Thrust in Glen Bruachaig. This site ("Glen Logan") was fundamental
in the Highlands Controversy debates of the 19th century - a key site for
Nicol and where early petrographic studies (Bonney 1880) were used to aid
structural investigations.
- The Bruachaig window - a tectonic inlier through the Kinlochewe Thrust
into its footwall of imbricated Cambrian strata. This one of the only such
structures in NW Scotland.