Garleton Hills
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Condition (NatureScot)
| Unit | Feature | Condition | Area (ha) | Assessed |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| F1 | Carboniferous - Permian Igneous | Favourable | — | 2013-03-11 |
Geology & landscape
Geological Period: Carboniferous
Landscape processes: Volcanic / Igneous
Description
GARLETON HILLS Garleton Hills SSSI is located approximately 2km north of Haddington in central East Lothian. This site contains important exposures of several quartz-trachyte lava flows and associated tuffs. These exposures are important in showing how basaltic magmas locally evolved at relatively shallow depths in the crust, producing the more silica-rich trachyte magmas. This process is thought to have occurred in a magma chamber located along the Southern Uplands Fault which underlies the Garleton Hills area. Lavas of intermediate composition, as distinct from the more abundant basaltic rocks, are an important if poorly exposed component of the Early Carboniferous (Dinantian) Volcanic sequences of the Midland Valley of Scotland.