From May 28 to June 2, 2019, representatives from IAT Newfoundland (proponents of Cabox Geopark) and IAT Maine visited Scotland on a 10th anniversary IAT Europe tour which ended in Northern Ireland on June 7 after an Outdoor Economy Forum that also included representatives from the Appalachian Trail Conservancy and Museum, and Appalachian Mountain Club based in Boston, Mass.

Day One began with a visit to the John Muir Birthplace Museum in Dunbar, where Paul Wylezol, Arne Helgeland and Andy Kerr from Newfoundland, Don Hudson and Bill Duffy from Maine, and Larry Luxenberg of the Appalachian Trail Museum in Pine Grove Furnace, Pennsylvania were met by IAT Scotland representative Hugh Barron of the British Geological Survey (BGS) and Birthplace Museum Chairperson Duncan Smeed.   Muir, also known as “John of the Mountains”, emigrated to the United States with his family in 1849 at the age of 11 and over the span of his life, helped create the environmental movement, Sierra Club and U.S. National Parks.

(L-R) Paul Wylezol, Arne Helgeland, Don Hudson, Bill Duffy, Andy Kerr and Hugh Barron (click to enlarge)

From the Birthplace Museum, the group continued on to nearby Siccar Point, birthplace of modern geology, where in 1788 Scottish geologist James Hutton used evidence of an unconformity to claim the world to be far older than a few thousand years, as previously thought.

Memorial University of Newfoundland Geologist Andy Kerr inspecting an unconformity at Siccar Point

The unconformity was formed by deposition and compaction of sediment on a seabed approximately 435mya, followed by folding and uplifting of rock layers during a period when the Appalachian Caledonian Mountains were being formed, then subsequent erosion of upper layers and later deposition of new sediment on top.

(L-R) Larry Luxenberg, Paul Wylezol, Hugh Barron, Andy Kerr, Arne Helgeland, Don Hudson and Bill Duffy

After a pleasant stroll across, down, up and around Siccar Point and a short visit to Tantallon Castle where an offshore island covered with seabirds and lighthouse resembles Guernsey Island (aka Weeball) in the outer Bay of Islands,

the group gathered at Howie’s at the base of Carlton Hill, Edinburgh for a relaxing evening dinner with the requisite refreshments followed by a nighttime stroll of the Royal Mile.

For more on the story – including the visit to Lochaber Geopark – go to the IATNL website.