The Scottish Landscape we see and love today might be shaped by climate and by human activity, but underlying it is bedrock covering 3 billion years of geological time. And Scots, like James Hutton, have been at the forefront of the subject for 200 years. Alan will talk about how plate tectonics and ice ages have left their imprint on our landscape and the plants and animals that live there. Alan was formerly head of Earth Sciences at Scottish Natural Heritage and is the author of 16 books on the geology and landscapes of Scotland.

Our annual Curious Minds Lecture series, presented by Culture Perth & Kinross and the Perthshire Society of Natural Science is themed around “Contemporary Science in Scotland” and, over past seasons, speakers have covered a stimulating array of scientific topics from dinosaur fossils in Skye, through the human genome to black holes, gravitational waves and the science of consciousness.