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changed enormously
over the last 330
million years.
The rocks of the Bathgate Hills
date from a time more than It’s been covered by volcanic ash,
330 million years ago when sunk beneath a tropical sea, and
West Lothian lay at the edge buried deep within the earth. Ice
of a giant continent, close to has shaped hills and valleys,
the Equator. As the coastline people have built temples and
changed over millions of castles, and all sorts of creatures
years, there were coral seas, have made this land their home.
sandy deltas, swampy forests,
and murky lagoons. Evidence of these changes is all
around you... if you just know
Then came the volcanoes... what to look for.
Ash rained down from the
skies and hot lava welled up Take this leaflet as your guide to
from cracks in the earth; the secrets of the Bathgate Hills.
slowly hardening to form Follow the trail, visit a museum or
amphibian
fossils from the igneous rocks of the a country park, or simply open
East Kirkton Bathgate Hills. your eyes and wonder as you
drive, cycle, or walk through this
In the last two million years, a massive thickness of ice ground special landscape. Open up this
the hills into the shapes that we see today. Traveling eastwards, leaflet and there’s a game of skill
the ice scooped out soft volcanic ash and sedimentary rocks, and adventure in which
leaving tougher igneous rock as isolated hills. all the family can
discover the n)
When the ice melted, great mounds of boulders, sand and clay rpio
secrets of the sco
were left, and where these blocked valleys, rivers cut new routes Bathgate ea
s
to the sea. Hollows flooded then gradually filled with rotting Hills. nt
gia
c The Trustees of the National Museums of Scotland
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ceremonies for almost
4,000 years Moss, lichen and bracken