My father was a geologist. When Interstate 75 was being built through Kentucky, a lot of hills had to be cut through, and Dad would often stop and take a look at the layers of earth and rock those cuts exposed, including layers that aren't horizontal due to tectonic uplift. I don't know if everyone else is as familiar with rock layers and geologic time as I was as a child, but most of us understand the concept somewhat.
At Siccar Point in Scotland, the layers are completely different. In the area called Hutton's Unconformity, the older layers are on their side, while others just above are horizontal. This changed the science of geology in 1788, when James Hutton studied these layers. Tom Scott takes us there and explains.
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this man gets around
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I remember my dad pulling the car over on the side of highways and getting my brother and I out of the car to go poke around in the rock rubble that had been left after a highway had been completed. One time we found a very heavy brick shaped rock that had hundreds of fossils embedded in it. We kept that stone for decades. My love affair with fossils began on the side of a very busy highway.
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