How the Island was made
The geology of the Isle of Man provides a fascinating insight into 500 million years of Earth’s history. The Island is only a small remnant of a once mighty mountain range formed when the continents of Europe and North America collided. Prior to that the area lay in an ocean thousands of kilometres south of the equator at a water depth of several hundred metres. Over time the area drifted northwards, experiencing as it went huge variations in sea level and climate, such that at one time desert conditions prevailed whilst at another it was part of a shallow tropical sea. On the way to becoming the Manx landscape we recognise today, it has been split by earthquakes, ignited by volcanoes, smothered by ice and exploited by man.
