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Journal of the Geological Society

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Short Paper: Devonian and later movements on the Great Glen fault system, Scotland

¹ Department of Earth Sciences, University of Oxford, Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3PR, UK
² Department of Geology, The University, Southampton SO9 5NH, UK
³ Postgraduate Research Institute for Sedimentology, University of Reading, PO Box 227, Whiteknights, Reading RG6 2AB, UK

On the Scottish mainland the Great Glen fault (GGF) displaces the Emsian to Frasnian Orcadian Old Red Sandstone (ORS) by only 25–29 km dextrally but net post–ORS dextral offsets in Shetland are much larger (120 km total). Most of the displacement (15–20 km) Permian initiation of the Inner Moray Firth Basin. It probably occurred between Frasnian cessation of Orcadian extension and accompanied transpressional inversion of the Orcadian Basin in the mid-late Carboniferous and/or possibly the late Devonian. Devono-Carboniferous transtension may also have occurred. The earlier history of the GGF includes late Caledonian sinistral motion which must have ceased by the late Emsian.

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