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Those soft green hills, the ledged sea-cliffs, the shallow lochs, those curving sweeps of sand... the story of them all can be traced back, and much of the story goes back around 390 million years, to a time when the present-day rocks of Orkney were being laid down as sediment on the bed of an ancient lake.
Dr John Flett Brown has explained aspects of the story to Festival audiences on various occasions and this year he is joined by a Rocks and Fossils Workshop from the Geological Society of London.
The workshop will be part of the Family Day on Saturday 4 September, and it will also be available for school visits on Friday 3 and Monday 6.
Orkney geologist Dr John Flett Brown shows at the West Shore of Stromness the layers of rock that were once sediment in ancient Lake Orcadie.
Meanwhile an invaluable starting-point for finding out more about Orkney is the VisitOrkney website www.visitorkney.com.
There you can find information about getting to Orkney, travelling around when you’re here, where to stay, what to see, and much else besides.
The two island newspapers publish news, features and weather updates on the web. The Orcadian at www.orcadian.co.uk includes Sky Notes and a link to its monthly magazine Living Orkney, and Orkney Today is at www.orkneytoday.co.uk.
For history, archaeology and folklore, a widely-admired site is the Orkneyjar one, at www.orkneyjar.com.
The site has been built up over the years by Sigurd Towrie as a labour of love, and includes the very latest information about current archaeological digs.
And if you want to research your Orkney roots, there’s Sib Folk - Orkney Family History Society’s website at www.orkneyfhs.co.uk.
We have features here on particular parts of Orkney where Science Festival events are taking place, including Deerness.
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