Description:
Travel back millions of years in time to join wildlife safaris and visit, as though a time-traveller, ancient environments teeming with life. As the fossils come alive experience and understand the fauna, flora and landscapes to be seen at ten localities in the geological past of Scotland.

You will catch fish in a Devonian lake 380 million years ago in Caithness; escape a great tsunami at Helmsdale following a Jurassic earthquake and then explore the Carboniferous forests, rivers and volcanoes of Edinburgh. On the Isle of Skye you wander a Jurassic shoreline and see a dinosaur dine. You will observe the nuptial dance of ammonites from a submersible. Pick your way around ancient hot-spring pools and geysers in Aberdeenshire and admire some of the first plants and animals to inhabit the land. The ten areas visited in this book represent some of the most famous fossiliferous locations in Scotland.

These imaginative stories are accompanied by pictures of fossils and of the places as they are seen today with the author’s careful reconstructive drawings of these ancient environments. The safaris are presented as stories but they are firmly based on published scientific evidence relating to the fossils and rocks of Scotland. The author’s intention is that this book will not only inform the reader about the ancient environments of Scotland, but also entertain and encourage further speculation. The book will appeal to all students, academics and amateurs interested in fossils, ecology, and the ancient environments that have prevailed at different times in the past on our planet.

Nigel Trewin is a Professor of Geology at the University of Aberdeen. His research has focussed on ancient environments and ecosystems, particularly the Devonian Old Red Sandstone of Scotland, including the prolific fossil fish beds, and the early terrestrial biota of the Rhynie chert. He edited the comprehensive work The Geology of Scotland (4th Edition, London, 2002). At Aberdeen University he has taught geology and lead field excursions for students, industry and non-specialists for nearly forty years.