medieval-atlas/introductory/6

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Glaciation Although there is truth in the stereotype of a rugged Highland "North" and a more fecund "South", both the rocks and glacial effects show west/east distinctions with important human implications. This is further reinforced by their interactions with climatic patterns, as appears in later maps: in particular, the essentially easterly distribution of Old Red Sandstone, (first map), important from Merse to Orkney for giving friable, welldrained soils, which warm up earlier in the spring than heavy clay tills. .. Old Red Sandstone ~\\ Scotlland: Old Red Sandstone With the weather coming in off the Atlantic in glacial times, as at the present day, the mountains of the west tended to engender the heaviest precipitation, giving severe glacial scouring on that side ofthe country, as shown in the next map. Combined with the intransigence of the metamorphically hardened bedrocks characteristic of the north-west, this has often given landscapes with poor soil cover and very limited agricultural potential. This is illustrated in the last map. Directions of ice movement, creating landscape patterns "=-;lr> with some influence on historic routeways Scotland's latest glaciers, which melted ---.. out around 8000 bc. Note westerly distribution, similar to modern precipitation, (illustrated on maps later in this Section). ScotHaJnld: giaciation lAM

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