Westwards from Killin
Eastern Glen Dochart
Garnets are found amongst the flaky schist rocks and amongst the igneous threads. All these geological types show the intensity of temperature and pressure to melt rock like glass and then cool into crystal forms. Looking across the slighter richer sedimentary valley farmland, you will notice small mounds and hillocks known as kames and formed from the silts and gravels that a glacier has set down along its front edge as it retreats.
Western Glen Dochart
Along Glen Dochart you can see the remains of eskers. These are the river silts left behind when a glacier has retreated. Rivers originated on top of, in the middle of, and below the glaciers and when it melted , the silts were deposited upon the ground in ribbon like ridges that are the ‘shadows’ of those glacial rivers.
Dalrigh and the Cononish glen
At Dalrigh, the two small lochans are kettle holes that were formed by blocks of ice breaking away from the passing glacier. The ice blocks would have sunk into the soft sediments where they stayed until they melted. This left behind holes or depressions, which filled with water to form isolated lochans. The track to Beinn Lui passes through the smaller hills around Cononish. The quartz veins that run in the rocks were originally mined for their copper deposits. Gold has been discovered and could be mined if the market price rises
Tyndrum
During the great upheavals that twisted and flipped many of the Breadalbane geological layers, many small fault lines formed when one section of land was torn from another and pushed above or dropped below the next. One such small fault appears near Tyndrum and lead-zinc minerals were formed at this time. This has been mined in the past and the spoil heaps can be seen just south-west of the village.