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The Faeroe Islands: geology

1982; Springer Science+Business Media; Linguagem: Inglês

10.1007/978-94-009-7977-2_3

2215-1729

Jan Rasmussen,

Geological formations and processes

The Faeroes compose an area of 1399 km2; the highest point, Slaettaratindur, is 882 m above sea level. They are built up by basaltic lava flows with interbedded pyroclastic material of lower Tertiary age (50–60 million years b.p.). The total thickness of visible basalt is ca. 3000 m; these are divided into the lower, the middle and the upper basalt series. Between the lower and the overlying series, there was a longer period of quiescence, which is represented by a coal and clay sequence of approximately 10 m.