Old Red Sandstone

Hutton's angular unconformity is at Siccar Point where 345 million year old Devonian Old Red Sandstone overlies 425 million year old Silurian greywacke.[1]
Siccar Point: eroded and gently sloping Devonian Old Red Sandstone layers cap over conglomerate layer and older vertically bedded Silurian greywacke rocks.
St. Magnus Cathedral, Kirkwall, Orkney, built of local sandstone
The unconformity at Jedburgh: illustrated by John Clerk in 1787 with a recent photography by Keith Montgomery
The Old Red Sandstone Continent in the Devonian

The Old Red Sandstone is a dark red sandstone laid down mainly in the Devonian period over a large part of the continent of Laurussia. The base of the ORS is now known to be in the Silurian and the top in the Carboniferous.[2]

Laurussia is often called the Old Red Continent, or Euramerica. It included what is now much of northern Europe, Greenland and North America. It was, at the time, between 0o and 30o south of the equator.

  1. Cite error: The named reference FieldExcursion was used but no text was provided for refs named (see the help page).
  2. Barclay W.J.; Browne M.A.E.; McMillan A.A.; Pickett E.A.; Stone P.; Wilby P.R., eds. (2005). "1: Introduction to the Old Red Sandstone of Great Britain" (PDF). The Old Red Sandstone of Great Britain. Geological Conservation Review Series. Vol. 31. Joint Nature Conservation Committee. ISBN 978-1-86107-543-7. Archived from the original (PDF) on 7 March 2012. Retrieved 26 February 2012.

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