Читать книгу The Ayrshire and Arran Coastal Paths онлайн

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By the end of the 19th century Arran had finally begun to establish proper links with the mainland, with piers having been built at Brodick, Lamlash, Whiting Bay and Lochranza. Since then agriculture and tourism have become the backbone of Arran's economy. When the Caledonian MacBrayne ferry began making regular, daily sailings to the island in the 1970s, Arran became one of Scotland's most popular tourist destinations.

Arran's Geology

The wonderful natural arena of Arran was formed around 400 million years ago and its layers of rock, including Dalradian and Ordovician schists as well as red sandstone, have made the island a playground for geologists for decades. James Hutton, the ‘father of modern geology’, visited Arran in the late 1800s and found evidence that transformed his ideas concerning the earth's age and formation. The island is split by the Highland Boundary Fault Line, a geological fault that traverses Scotland from west coast to east and which separates the country into its two distinctly different regions, the Highlands and the Lowlands. Arran's northern half is dominated by igneous rocks formed around 50-60 million years ago while the southern end is formed by Devonian and Carboniferous rocks estimated to be around 380 million years old. Yet it wasn't until the beginnings of deglaciation at the end of the last Ice Age, approximately 10,000 years ago, that the magnificent mountains of Arran started to emerge from under the ice and the island's wonderful glens began to gouge their way through its landscape.