Montrose Basin

ARCHAEOLOGICALLY, you can find evidence for the Storegga Slide, the name given to an underwater earthquake which took place about 100 miles off the coast of Norway around 8,000 years ago.

it caused a tidal wave to cross the North Sea and it smashed into the eastern seaboard of Scotland and England. the wave, as much as 100ft high, travelled inland for about 25 miles and would have obliterated everything over a vast area.

in that moment, it also flooded the English Channel and completed our separation from the European continent. At the Montrose Basin, if you dig down into the soil there you come across a layer which appears like cream in a Black Forest gateau. it shouldn’t be there but it’s the sand that was dumped by the tidal wave.

that’s the physical evidence of the event that created the British isles. it reminds us this place of ours is not a finished product and the coastline is redrawn by every wave that breaks.