Between two worlds

You’re walking in a kind of no-man’s land between two different landscapes: the Highlands and the Lowlands. They are separated by the Highland Boundary Fault, which splits the island in two. Despite its popular name, the Highland Line, it’s not a fine line. It’s a broad crumple zone, marking a deep fracture in the Earth’s crust. Around 450 million years ago the land we now know as Scotland was spread across five islands on the edge of the ancient continent of Laurentia. This continent also included North America and Norway. England was on a separate continent, Avalonia. Over the next 40 million years the two continents moved towards each other, pushing these landmasses together to form Scotland. The Highland Boundary Fault is where these two continents met.