Geology
Excursions
We organise excursions
from springtime to autumn:
including day, evening
and residential excursions.
The Geology Excursion Programme features a range of events, including our core programme of day excursions and local evening excursions, led by a geologist with expert knowledge of the locality.
Read the Code of Conduct & Safety Guidelines and find out how to book your place
All our excursions are free of charge, including coach hire for Saturday excursions that are difficult to reach by public transport.
Please do not abuse the system by booking excursions and not turning up, or cancelling at short notice. You may deprive someone else of the opportunity. You must notify the Excursions Booking Secretary if you have booked an excursion and are not able to attend.
Saturday Excursions 2026
Saturday 25 April, 9am James Hutton’s Jedburgh Unconformity & the Great Tapestry of Scotland at Galashiels
Leaders: Alison Tymon & Emma Bedda
In 1787 James Hutton and John Clerk of Eldin visited Jedburgh and enjoyed a saunter upstream along the Jed Water riverbank. Here John Clark sketched the famous James Hutton’s unconformity at Jedburgh. Follow in their footsteps and find out more about their journey. View John Clerk of Eldin’s stunning illustration depicting the valuable site and get involved in discussions on geodiversity and the difficulty of preserve one of Scotland’s most important geological sites. The afternoon will be completed with a bus trip to view the Great Scottish Tapestry at Galashields a collaborative masterpiece of Scottish Heritage the brainchild of Alexander McCall Smith and Alaistair Moffat; an opportunity to bask in the impressive James Hutton panel, as well as several panels on the geological history of Scotland.
Coach excursion from Edinburgh, cost £12.50 for exhibition entry.
Further information & booking – webcollect.org.uk/edinburghgeolsoc
You will find the Excursion Information Form and the Excursions Safety Information in the Downloads section (top right of booking page) and these are also emailed to you when you book.
Saturday 9 May, 10:30am South Queensferry to Cramond
Leader: Richard Smith
An excursion to set the spectacular three bridges within their surrounding geological context. This excursion will examine exposed Carboniferous sedimentary cycles of the West Lothian Oil-Shale and Gullane formations deposited in a shallow marine environment over 350 million years ago. Igneous magmas intruded the cool sedimentary units; this trip explores the relationships between these hot magmas and their surrounding cool sediments.
Further information & booking – webcollect.org.uk/edinburghgeolsoc
You will find the Excursion Information Form and the Excursions Safety Information in the Downloads section (top right of booking page) and these are also emailed to you when you book.
Saturday 13 June, 9am Hutton 300: Landscape, Rocks and Time Exhibition and Gunsgreen House
Leader: Alison Tymon
James Hutton was an early thinker in understanding the link between geology and agriculture. This unique excursion visits the James Hutton exhibition at the Hayloft Gallery, Paxton House with an afternoon building stones tour of Gunsgreen House Eyemouth.
The James Hutton exhibition at Paxton House includes examples of rocks and images from Hutton’s most famous sites, as well as information about his travels, the development of his thinking about time and geological processes, as well as his agricultural improvements while he farmed in east Berwickshire. Shop, facilities and grounds can be visited. No tours around the house that day but walks down to the River Tweed would be pleasant. Bring picnic lunch, although the small Stables café provides lunches, cakes and drinks. After lunch the trip heads to Gunsgreen House, Eyemouth to discuss the interesting building stones of Adam-designed Gunsgreen House, built 1752-1753.
Coach excursion from Edinburgh, cost £7.50 per person for exhibition entry and room hire.
Further information & booking – webcollect.org.uk/edinburghgeolsoc
You will find the Excursion Information Form and the Excursions Safety Information in the Downloads section (top right of booking page) and these are also emailed to you when you book.
Saturday 4 July, 11:00 Siccar Point & the Deep Time Trail (joint excursion with the Geological Society of Glasgow)
Leader: Angus Miller
Siccar Point, described as the most important geological site in the world, sits at the eastern end of a superb coastal section with three sets of contrasting sedimentary rocks from three periods: Carboniferous, Devonian and Silurian. The angular unconformity between the Devonian and Silurian strata at Siccar Point was used by James Hutton to support his world-shaking ideas of geological time and natural processes, after he set out with friends to search for the junction: “What clearer evidence could we have had of the different formation of these rocks, and of the long interval which separated their formation, had we actually seen them emerging from the bosom of the deep? We felt ourselves necessarily carried back to the time …” (John Playfair).
In the year of the Tercentenary of Hutton’s birth, this excursion will follow the journey made by Hutton, John Playfair and James Hall along the coast on an easy footpath with good views of the coastal scenery created from these varied rocks, including a sheltered harbour, sandy bays and cliff sections. As we approach Siccar Point, we will join the new Deep Time Trail created by EGS this year to mark the Tercentenary and generously supported by GSG and other donors.
This is a joint trip with Geological Society of Glasgow. Please note the Edinburgh pick-up point is at Sheriffhall Park & Ride, Old Dalkeith Road EH22 1FF at 10am (please inform excursion secretary if required.)
Further information & booking – webcollect.org.uk/edinburghgeolsoc
You will find the Excursion Information Form and the Excursions Safety Information in the Downloads section (top right of booking page) and these are also emailed to you when you book.
Saturday 11 July, 9am Spireslack
Leaders: Graham Leslie, Mike Browne
Spireslack is an abandoned surface coalmine (SCM) at Glenbuck, East Ayrshire, an area with a long history of mining beginning with bell pits sunk for ironstone in the late 18th century. Underground coal extraction in the late 19th/early 20th century, accessed via the Grasshill Pit, was followed by the later surface operations. Underground mining ceased in 1931, presaging the final decline of Glenbuck village – of which there is little trace today. Surface mining began around 2000 and ended in 2008 with the terminal decline of the Scottish coal industry.
Spireslack SCM preserves marvellous exposures of coal-bearing Carboniferous strata of Visean to Namurian age. The entirety of the Limestone Coal Formation is now exposed in a one kilometre long, over 130 m thick section within the high wall of the Main Void at Spireslack, whilst most of the Lawmuir, Lower Limestone and Upper Limestone formations are exposed throughout the remainder of the SCM. Natural, clean and continuous exposures of these economically important strata are rare, and therefore the exposures at Spireslack give an opportunity to better understand the geology and structural evolution of this part of the Carboniferous within central Scotland, and to study key features in multi-scalar 3-dimensional detail.
Coach excursion from Edinburgh.
Further information & booking – webcollect.org.uk/edinburghgeolsoc
You will find the Excursion Information Form and the Excursions Safety Information in the Downloads section (top right of booking page) and these are also emailed to you when you book.
Saturday 22 August, 9am Elephant Rock, Montrose
Leader: Rosalind Garton
Boddin Point, 5 km south of Montrose, comprises a small exposure of Upper Devonian sedimentary rocks faulted against lavas of the Montrose Volcanic Formation (MVF). Extensive “cornstone” nodular development in a thick deposit of calcretised sandstone in the Kinnesswood Formation was worked here between 1696 and 1831 and burned in three lime kilns on the shore, two of which are still well preserved. The “Elephant Rock” is a Siluro-Devonian 6-metre-wide felsitic dyke which cuts the MVF lavas. Erosion of much of the host lavas has left a spectacular 20 m-high wall striking out to sea. It is a rich red in colour, porphyritic and occasionally vesicular, with veins of chalcedony. Recent erosion has cut two sea arches across the dyke, giving it the appearance of an elephant’s trunk and legs.
Coach excursion from Edinburgh.
Further information & booking – webcollect.org.uk/edinburghgeolsoc
You will find the Excursion Information Form and the Excursions Safety Information in the Downloads section (top right of booking page) and these are also emailed to you when you book.
Saturday 5 September, 10:30am Belhaven to Dunbar
Leader: Fiona McGibbon
This field trip is an opportunity to look at sedimentary rocks that straddle the Devonian/Carboniferous boundary as well as many igneous features that control the coastal geomorphology. We start at Belhaven Bay looking at low energy sedimentary rocks of the early Carboniferous and walk round the coast to examine some exquisite pyroclastic rocks of a major volcanic structure. We then take the clifftop trail and end at Dunbar harbour where we see a variety of igneous features as well as some late Devonian sedimentary rocks.
Further information & booking – webcollect.org.uk/edinburghgeolsoc
You will find the Excursion Information Form and the Excursions Safety Information in the Downloads section (top right of booking page) and these are also emailed to you when you book.
Wednesday Evening Excursions 2026
Wednesday 29 April, 7pm Calton Hill from the bottom up
Leader: Alistair McGowan
Calton Hill is part of the wider landscape that has been left by the deposition and erosion of a suite of volcanic and volcaniclastic rocks deposited by igneous activity during the Early Carboniferous.
To better understand the igneous activity, the excursion will trace the geological units from the lowest tufts and lavas that form the cliffs of Calton Craigs up through the alternating sequence of lavas and tufts. Another aim of the excursion is to compare the sequence of rocks exposed on Calton Hill with those in Holyrood Park.
Some of the lavas are well-exposed and allow more detailed study of the characteristics that allow the different types of Carboniferous lavas to be differentiated in the field. After crossing the summit area, the final locality to be visited exposes an intrusive dyke on the descent to Greenside.
Further information & booking – webcollect.org.uk/edinburghgeolsoc
You will find the Excursion Information Form and the Excursions Safety Information in the Downloads section (top right of booking page) and these are also emailed to you when you book.
Wednesday 6 May, 7pm West End of New Town
Leader: Andrew McMillian
This excursion celebrates the publication of a new Lothian & Borders Geoconservation booklet on the Building Stones of the West End of Edinburgh. The walk will include the late 18th Century to early 19th Century Charlotte Square which has been described as ‘one of the major achievements in European civic architecture of the period’.
Further information & booking – webcollect.org.uk/edinburghgeolsoc
You will find the Excursion Information Form and the Excursions Safety Information in the Downloads section (top right of booking page) and these are also emailed to you when you book.
Wednesday 20 May, 7pm James Hutton’s Edinburgh
Leader: Beverly Bergman
2026 is a special year for our local Scottish geological legend James Hutton! EGS is celebrating his tercentenary with a special Hutton’s Edinburgh excursion. Join our local James Hutton boffin with a trail to key sites across the city associated with Hutton’ life. With the aid of old maps and pictures, see where James Hutton lived with his family when he was a child, follow his route to school and hear about some of the events that would have shaped his childhood. Visit his final resting place in Greyfriars Kirkyard and pay respects to this great visionary. Then make our way up to the site of the house on St John’s Hill that he built when he returned to Edinburgh and where he lived with his three sisters, now the site of the Hutton Memorial Garden, and see how the view from the garden inspired his geological thinking. The walk will finish close to where he socialised with such luminaries as Joseph Black and Adam Smith, to enjoy a drink to his memory and to continue the historical stories of the great man himself.
Further information & booking – webcollect.org.uk/edinburghgeolsoc
You will find the Excursion Information Form and the Excursions Safety Information in the Downloads section (top right of booking page) and these are also emailed to you when you book.
Wednesday 10 June, 7pm James Hutton in Holyrood Park
Leader: Angus Miller
James Hutton, father of modern geology, lived at St John’s Hill at the edge of Holyrood Park for most of the last 30 years of his life. As part of the celebrations of his 300th birthday, we’ll follow in his footsteps from the site of his house and visit key locations in Holyrood Park that helped shape and confirm his ideas on the nature of igneous rocks. He didn’t get everything right! We’ll be guided by the ‘Lost Drawings’, prepared for volumes 3 and 4 of Hutton’s Theory of the Earth, written at St John’s Hill but left unpublished when he died. We’ll view Arthur’s Seat from the Parade Ground behind Holyrood Palace, visit lava flows in the vicinity of St Anthony’s Chapel and Hutton’s Section and Hutton’s Rock at Salisbury Crags.
Further information & booking – webcollect.org.uk/edinburghgeolsoc
You will find the Excursion Information Form and the Excursions Safety Information in the Downloads section (top right of booking page) and these are also emailed to you when you book.
Wednesday 24 June, 7pm James Hutton in Holyrood Park
Leader: Angus Miller
From the site of Hutton’s house at St John’s Hill, visit key locations in Holyrood Park that helped shape and confirm his ideas on the nature of igneous rocks. He didn’t get everything right! We’ll be guided by the ‘Lost Drawings’, view Arthur’s Seat from near Holyrood Palace, visit lava flows in the vicinity of St Anthony’s Chapel and then Hutton’s Section and Hutton’s Rock at Salisbury Crags.
Further information & booking – webcollect.org.uk/edinburghgeolsoc
You will find the Excursion Information Form and the Excursions Safety Information in the Downloads section (top right of booking page) and these are also emailed to you when you book.
Wednesday 1 July, 7pm Scotsman’s Steps
Leader: Fiona McGibbon
The Scotsman Steps which connect North Bridge to Market St in Edinburgh became an artwork in 2011 when the Fruitmarket Gallery commissioned Martin Creed to make his Work No.1059, which involved resurfacing the steps with 104 different ‘marbles’ from all over the world. The colourful slabs of rock are an amazing range of lithologies, colours and textures, each with a tale to tell. We will take it one step at a time, thinking about the geological processes of their formation and brushing up on Italian in passing. A petrological parade across four continents in just two hours!
Further information & booking – webcollect.org.uk/edinburghgeolsoc
You will find the Excursion Information Form and the Excursions Safety Information in the Downloads section (top right of booking page) and these are also emailed to you when you book.
Wednesday 15 July, 7pm James Hutton’s Edinburgh
Leader: Beverly Bergman
2026 is a special year for our local Scottish geological legend James Hutton! EGS is celebrating his tercentenary with a special Hutton’s Edinburgh excursion. Join our local James Hutton boffin with a trail to key sites across the city associated with Hutton’ life. With the aid of old maps and pictures, see where James Hutton lived with his family when he was a child, follow his route to school and hear about some of the events that would have shaped his childhood. Visit his final resting place in Greyfriars Kirkyard and pay respects to this great visionary. Then make our way up to the site of the house on St John’s Hill that he built when he returned to Edinburgh and where he lived with his three sisters, now the site of the Hutton Memorial Garden, and see how the view from the garden inspired his geological thinking. The walk will finish close to where he socialised with such luminaries as Joseph Black and Adam Smith, to enjoy a drink to his memory and to continue the historical stories of the great man himself.
Further information & booking – webcollect.org.uk/edinburghgeolsoc
You will find the Excursion Information Form and the Excursions Safety Information in the Downloads section (top right of booking page) and these are also emailed to you when you book.
Wednesday 29 July, 7pm Building Stones of Edinburgh
Leader: Luis Albornoz-Parra
A tour of part of Edinburgh’s Old and New Towns, focusing on buildings and monuments made of both local stone, and stone brought into the city from further away. Starting at Old College moving downhill to the New Town the walk will zigzag through the streets of the Old Town and stop by buildings and monuments with an interesting building stone story. We will look in detail at what the different stones are, where they came from, their character, how this affects their condition, and past and current conservation issues.
Further information & booking – webcollect.org.uk/edinburghgeolsoc
You will find the Excursion Information Form and the Excursions Safety Information in the Downloads section (top right of booking page) and these are also emailed to you when you book.
Wednesday 5 August, 7pm Blackford Hill
Leader: Teddy Reeves, BGS
One of Edinburgh’s impressive landmark hills the ancient volcanic origins and geological importance of Blackford Hill will be explored. This unassuming hill is where the role of ice in sculpting Scotland’s impressive landscape was first recognised by simple scratches preserved in rock. Identified by the Swiss geologist Louis Agassiz in 1840 and reported in the Scotsman newspaper by editor (and geologist) Charles MacLaren. A chilly chat on, hopefully, a sizzling summer evening.
Further information & booking – webcollect.org.uk/edinburghgeolsoc
You will find the Excursion Information Form and the Excursions Safety Information in the Downloads section (top right of booking page) and these are also emailed to you when you book.
Residential Excursions 2026
20-27 June Geology of Mull
Leader: Prof Godfrey Fitton
The Isle of Mull is well known in the geological literature for its Early Palaeogene igneous rocks, particularly those of the central volcanic complex. This is the eroded remains of a large tholeiitic basalt-rhyolite volcano built on an older sequence of flood-basalt lava flows. The older basement rocks ranging in age from Precambrian to Cretaceous can be seen in places where erosion has stripped away the basalt lava flows.
This excursion is already full. Contact the Excursion Secretary to join the waiting list.
1-2 August The Permian of Northeast England
Leaders: Stu Clark and Graham Leslie
Curious about the evaporite–carbonate successions of the Zechstein Group and the underlying continental sandstones? From Seaham to Tynemouth on the North Sea coast of Northumberland, we will explore elements of the Permian marine succession of the UK in spectacular strata on the coast at Seaham. By the River Wear in Sunderland, we can examine the sedimentology, prospectivity and reservoir characteristics of the strata of the earlier Permian Rotliegendes continental regime. Carboniferous Coal Measures underlie the whole district, and can be seen north of Tynemouth, displaced and deformed along with Permian strata by faulting.
Further information will be available soon. You can make a booking now at webcollect.org.uk/edinburghgeolsoc
EGS Online Excursions
Our YouTube Channel | Online Excursions Playlist
Subscribe to EGS YouTube channel
EGS Online Excursion 2020 Dalkeith Building Stones with Tom Challands
EGS Online Excursion 2020 Kinghorn-Kirkcaldy with Ian Kearsley
EGS Online Excursion 2020 to Joppa Shore with Robert Gatliff
Geological Excursions organised by other Societies in Scotland
The Geological Society of Glasgow
EGS members are welcome to attend excursions organised by the Geological Society of Glasgow where spaces are available. Further excursion details from their web site. Members are reminded they are eligible to join the Glasgow Society as Associate Members.