Didn't know about the Atlas, but I knew northern Scotland and Nova Scotia shared a lot of geology.

The southern end of the Atlas, the Anti-Atlas range, is from the same formation as the Appalachans. The rest of the Atlas came from a different (later?) event.

Nova Scotia and Scotch-Irish settling in Appalachia (another comment). Interesting thought process how a people managed to find their ideal land in spite of continental drift.

There has been an obvious tendency for Europeans to migrate to areas similar to where they came from. A lot of Finns migrated to Minnesota I believe because it is full of trees and lakes and has cold winters much like Finland!