The Western Highlands contain some of the oldest rocks in Europe in a landscape formed more than a billion years ago that has re-emerged from the depths. Geologists have been examining these rocks since the early nineteenth century and, in spite of intense research in this tiny fraction of the Earth's surface, major controversies still surround some of the rock formations. Many fundamentally important concepts in geology were first developed here and then applied elsewhere around the world. The region is an outstanding natural laboratory for the study of mountain building and folding,...