Skip to main content
CASP Visit CASP website

Main

  • About Us
    • How We Can Help
    • A Bit of History
    • Our Status
    • People
    • Jobs
    • SEM Facility
    • Contact Us
    • News
    • Preventing Harm in Research and Innovation
  • Products
    • Geological Carbon Storage Research
    • Regional Research
    • Reports
    • Data Packages
    • Geological Collections and Data
  • Charity and Education
    • Publications
    • Meetings
    • The Robert Scott Research Fund
    • The Andrew Whitham CASP Fieldwork Awards
    • Outreach
  • Interactive Map
    • Arctic Region
    • China Region
    • East Africa Region
    • North Africa and Middle East Region
    • North Atlantic Region
    • Russia Region
    • South Atlantic Region
    • Southeast Europe to West Central Asia Region
  1. Home
  2. Publications
  3. Detrital zircon age constraints on basement history on the margins of the northern Rockall Basin

Detrital zircon age constraints on basement history on the margins of the northern Rockall Basin

Detrital zircon dating has proven to be an effective way to constrain ages of submerged basement terranes on the margins of the northern Rockall Basin, a region where direct evidence of crustal affinities is scarce or absent. Zircons have been dated from sandstones of Paleocene–Oligocene age known to have been derived from the east (Hebridean Platform) and west (Rockall and George Bligh highs). The results show that the Hebridean Platform is a westward extension of the Lewisian Complex, with Archaean and Palaeoproterozoic ages that can be directly correlated with events identified in the Outer Hebrides and NW Scotland. The detrital zircons derived from the Hebridean Platform also provide evidence for a Mesoproterozoic thermal event and two phases of intrusions in the Palaeozoic. The Rockall High consists of a Palaeoproterozoic terrane dated as c. 1760–1800 Ma, similar to ages previously determined from both basement samples and detrital sediment. The data also provide evidence for the subsequent intrusion of alkaline igneous rocks in the Paleocene–Eocene. The George Bligh High represents an Archaean terrane heavily affected by Palaeoproterozoic tectonothermal events, and was also the site of intrusion of alkaline igneous rocks during Paleocene time.

Publication Details

  • Type

    Book Section
  • Title

    Detrital zircon age constraints on basement history on the margins of the northern Rockall Basin
  • Year

    2014
  • Author(s)

    Morton, A.C., Frei, D., Stoker, M. and Ellis, D.
  • Editor(s)

    Cannon, S.J.C. and Ellis, D.
  • Book Title

    Hydrocarbon Exploration to Exploitation West of Shetlands
  • Publisher

    Geological Society, London, Special Publications
  • Volume

    397
  • Page(s)

    209-223
  • URL

    http://dx.doi.org/10.1144/sp397.12
  • People

    • Andy Morton

Charity and Education

  • Publications
  • Meetings
  • The Robert Scott Research Fund
  • The Andrew Whitham CASP Fieldwork Awards
    • 2025 Fieldwork Award Winners
    • 2024 Fieldwork Award Winners
    • 2023 Fieldwork Award Winner
    • 2022 Fieldwork Award Winners
    • 2021 Fieldwork Award Winners
    • 2020 Fieldwork Award Winners
    • 2019 Fieldwork Award Winners
    • 2018 Fieldwork Award Winners
    • 2017 Fieldwork Award Winners
  • Outreach
  • © CASP A Not-For-Profit Organisation
  • Charity No. 298729
  • Privacy
  • Cookies
  • Contact Us
  • Jobs
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn