ABSTRACT

Published in 1865, of The Scenery of Scotland by Archibald Geikie is arguably the first book to employ modern geomorphological principles to explain landscape evolution within a regional context. It appeared during a period of conflicting paradigms, and though it endorsed some now-outdated concepts, it followed the tenets of uniformitarianism: that the form of the land surface is explicable by the operation of surface (fluvial, coastal and glacial) processes operating on rocks of varying age and resistance. It demonstrated that upland landscapes represent dissection, first by rivers, then by glaciers, of uplifted palaeosurfaces; that Scotland was completely buried by glacier ice, then experienced a later period of mountain glaciation; that coastlines underwent both submergence and uplift during and after deglaciation; and that long-term differential erosion created distinctive topographies that reflect the underlying structure and lithology. The book exhibits remarkable insights, some unconfirmed until recently, concerning aspects of river channel evolution, coastal erosion and the interpretation of glacial features. In its various editions, The Scenery of Scotland remained the sole text devoted to the evolution of the Scottish landscape for over a century and its influence continues to resonate with multiple aspects of recent research on the geomorphology of Scotland.

摘要

1865 年出版的《苏格兰风光》Archibald Geikie 的著作可以说是第一本采用现代地貌学原理来解释区域背景下的景观演变的书。它出现在范式相互冲突的时期，虽然它认可一些现在已经过时的概念，但它遵循均变论的原则：地表的形式可以通过地表（河流、沿海和冰川）过程的运作来解释不同年龄和抵抗力的岩石。它表明，高地景观代表了抬升的古地表的解剖，首先是河流，然后是冰川；苏格兰完全被冰川冰掩埋，然后经历了后期的山地冰川作用；海岸线在冰川消退期间和之后经历了淹没和隆起；长期的差异侵蚀创造了反映底层结构和岩性的独特地形。这本书展示了关于河道演变、海岸侵蚀和冰川特征解释等方面的非凡见解，其中一些直到最近才得到证实。在不同的版本中，一个多世纪以来，《苏格兰风光》一直是唯一一部致力于苏格兰景观演变的文本，其影响力继续与近期苏格兰地貌学研究的多个方面产生共鸣。