Geology of the Hebrides and West Shetland shelves, and adjacent deep-water areas [Digital reprint] (POD)

This report covers an extensive area off the north and west coast of Scotland, in a 200 km-wide strip running around 1000 km west of the Hebrides, Orkney and Shetland islands. The authors are Martyn Stoker, Ken Hitchen and Colin Graham.

The Geology of the area : The continental crust, which thins significantly to the west, comprises dominantly Lewisian gneiss. East of the Moine Thrust, the younger basement rocks form an allochthonous belt emplaced during the Caledonian orogeny. Between Orkney and Shetland, the Lewisian is overlain by Moine and Devonian rocks, and adjacent to the Scottish mainland by Torridonian and Cambro-Ordovician sediments.
An early Permian phase of rifting led to the development of a series of half-grabens, in which were deposited thick sequences of Permo-Triassic continental sediments. Thin Jurassic marine sediments have been recovered in most wells drilled in the area and thick Cretaceous marine shales occur in the Møre and Faeroe-Shetland basins.
The early Tertiary was dominated by the opening of the north-east Atlantic Ocean and this was accompanied by igneous activity in the Hebrides area, including widespread outpouring of basaltic lavas and the development of several major igneous centres. The shelf was subject to widespread glacial activity during the Quaternary.

Author Stoker, M.S.

ISBN 0118844997

Year Published 1993