This volume deals with those sites selected as part of the
Geological Conservation Review (GCR) within the southern British
part of the Caledonides, that is, the paratectonic Caledonides - a
Caledonian terrane without strong and pervasive deformation and
metamorphism, such as occurred further north. This orogenic belt
formed by long and complex processes of earth movements between 500
and 380 million years before the present (?late Cambrian to
mid-Devonian times), and has been classic ground for geologists for
two hundred years. It is perhaps no accident that James Hutton in
1795 chose to illustrate his geostrophic cycle (and unconformity)
with three visually explicit examples of the deformation wrought on
Lower Palaeozoic rocks by Caledonian events. The former Caledonian
mountain chain, which can be seen today in fragmented pieces in
Scandinavia, Britain and Ireland, and North America, was ultimately
the result of the collision of two continental plates and the
closure of a former ocean, Iapetus. Some of these fragments,
including those in Scandinavia, southern Britain, and the Republic
of Ireland and the Maritime Provinces of Canada, are thought to
have lain on the south side of the ocean before collision: the rest
of North America, northern Ireland, and Scotland are thought to
have lain north of the former Iapetus.
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