Palaeogene and Neogene

Abstract

AbstractMost of the British Isles has been a land area throughout the Tertiary and the basic shape of the coastline had been determined by the late Palaeocene. Only in southeast England are there marine Palaeogene and Neogene successions and these were deposited in embayments marginal to the North Sea and English Channel.Much of the key information for the interpretation of the Tertiary history of the British Isles lies offshore. Thousands of kilometres of seismic profiles have been run and hundreds of boreholes drilled, mainly in the search for oil. The only part of the Tertiary which has been of economic interest is the Palaeocene of the northern North Sea. Summaries of the offshore data are given in Woodland (1975) and Illing & Hobson (1981).Thick Tertiary successions are known from the central Graben of the North Sea, the Rockall Trough and the Faeroe Basin (Map Pg 1). The North Sea was the site of great subsidence caused by thermal relaxation following stretching of the continental crust (Sclater & Christie 1980). None of the Tertiary sediments was deposited in very deep water. By contrast, the Rockall Trough and the Faeroe Basin are underlain by oceanic crust and deep water has existed there throughout the Tertiary. The successions are known only from seismic studies (Roberts 1975) but are thought to be mainly fine-grained and with some contourites.On a regional scale, the Tertiary history of northwest Europe must be considered in relation to the plate tectonic events proceeding in the adjacent ocean.