Abstract
THE obvious connection and analogy between the geological structure of the crystalline rocks of the Highlands of Scotland and those of Scandinavia have long engaged the attention of geologists. Among the northern observers to whose labours we are largely indebted for our knowledge of the Scandinavian regions, Dr. A. E. Törnebohm has proved himself a keen and indefatigable explorer of the Swedish uplands. Many years ago he showed that above clay-slates and limestones, with recognizable Silurian fossils, there lies a great thickness of quartzites, gneisses, and schists, called by him the Seve group. In more recently studying the relations of these rock-masses, he encountered some great difficulties, of which he sent me at the time an account. I could not pretend to solve them, but suggested, as at least a working hypothesis, that the Scandinavian structure might be fundamentally similar to that now recognized as characteristic of the North-West Highlands, where the apparent conformable superposition of a series of schists upon fossiliferous Lower Silurian strata has been produced by great terrestrial displacements, whereby the overlying rocks have been crushed and deformed, until they have assumed a new crystalline structure along the planes of movement, these stupendous changes having occurred at some time subsequent to the Lower Silurian period. I have recently received from Dr. Törnebohm the following letter, which he gives me leave to publish, and which will no doubt be read with interest by those who are aware of the recent progress of research in this subject:—“It will perhaps interest you to learn that your suggestion four years ago regarding the construction of our Scandinavian filds has turned out to be correct, at least in my opinion. My late researches have little by little driven me to the conclusion that the crystalline schists belonging to what I have called the ‘eve group’ have been placed over Silurian strata by an enormous eastward thrust. I admit that I have most reluctantly come to this conclusion, knowing that it implied a horizontal thrust of enormous masses of rock for more than 100 kilometres. Such a stupendous movement of entire mountain-regions is hard to realize; but facts are stubborn things.”
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GEIKIE, A. The Geological Structure of Scandinavia and the Scottish Highlands . Nature 38, 127 (1888). https://doi.org/10.1038/038127a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/038127a0