The Black (and Red) Cuillin Mountains on the Isle of Skye were created by huge volcanoes that formed when the North American tectonic plate started to drift away from the European plate around 61 million years ago. What we see today are the remains of the magma chamber, it is thought that over 2km of overlying rock has been eroded away since the mountains were formed.
During that last Ice Age the mountains were covered with ice which has carved the valleys and left distinctive smoothed rocks and striations cut into the rock which indicate the direction of flow of the ice.
Main Picture: Loch Coruisk looking South to Sgurr na Stri - May 2017
