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Callander

The village of Callander lies on the boundary between Lowland and Highland Scotland and any visitor to the area cannot fail to notice the change in topography on either side of the village - to the north lies the steep, rugged hills of the Trossachs, and to the south lies the gentle rolling hills of the Midland Valley. This abrupt change is due to the presence of the Highland Boundary Fault just north of the village - a fault that traverses Scotland from Stonehaven to Arran. Precambrian metamorphic rocks lie north of the fault, while Devonian and Carboniferous rocks lie to the south. In between these two terranes lies a thin sliver of unmetamorphosed rocks called the Highland Border Complex. This complex is exposed at Lime Craig Quarry, where its fossilised marine fauna links the area to Scandinavia and North America at the time of the Complex's formation.

The Highland Border Complex is exposed in other parts of the country, e.g. at Stonehaven or Loch Lomond, but it is at Lime Craig Quarry that fossils of trilobites, brachiopods and gastropods have been found that are unique in Britain. The fossils, found in the Dounans Limestone are thought to be mid-Arenig in age (approximately 480 - 475Ma). They correlate with fossils found in rocks of a similar age in Scandinavia and North America, and therefore support the theory that these three areas once lay adjoined as part of the Laurentian continental mass. In England and Wales however, different fossils have been found in rocks dating to the same age, suggesting that these areas lay elsewhere - on the opposite side of the Iapetus Ocean, associated with the continents of Baltica and Avalonia.

Further Reading (Highland Border Complex):

Trewin, N. H. (ed.) 2002. The Geology of Scotland. The Geological Society, London.