Harry Young’s Rock Map of Scotland
Exhibition at Burlington House
From July to October 2024, we were delighted to exhibit Harry Young's hugely popular rock map of Scotland at Burlington House.
Harry created this map of Scotland by travelling around the country collecting rocks. He shot to fame on social media earlier this year when his grandson posted about the map on X (Twitter). Since February, the post has been viewed more than 6.2 million times.
"I always liked going along the beach kicking up stones when I was a boy, and I always had a lucky stone in my pocket," Harry said.
"I'd never seen it done, so I just started collecting area by area. At that time I was travelling all over for work so I just collected as I went. Every rock you see on that map I went to that place and collected it.”
Harry started making the map in 1992 and added the final piece in 2020.
By displaying Harry’s Rock Map in our free exhibition and holding a series of special events to celebrate the map, we hoped to encourage more children, young people and adults to engage with geoscience (and science more generally).
Visitors to the exhibition were also able to view William Smith's famous 1815 geological map of England and Wales, considered to be the first geological map of a complete country ever made, and a reproduction of John MacCulloch's 1840 (third issue) geological map of Scotland, the first based on an official survey and published by a government.
As part of our celebrations for Earth Science Week 2024, Harry also led a free webinar, where he talked about how his geoscience career provided the inspiration for his map, anecdotes from the places he visited, and what it felt like to go viral. You can watch the webinar on our YouTube channel.
Map image is © The Geological Society of London, 2024.