Nicolette M. Hine

A punctuated 103.3 m thick succession of upper Palaeogene to Quaternary sediments has been recovered in a borehole from the upper Hebrides Slope, west of Britain. The borehole proved 11.2m of upper Oligocene, carbonate-rich muds at the base, unconformably overlain by 2.85 m of middle to upper Miocene, glauconitic sands. This is in turn unconformably overlain by 89.25 m of predominantly Plio-Pleistocene sands and muds, with a Holocene sea-bed veneer. The post-Miocene succession is subdivided into two units: the sand-dominated, Pliocene to lower middle Pleistocene, Lower MacLeod sequence between 89.25 and 67.82 m, and the mud-dominated, middle Pleistocene to Holocene, Upper MacLeod sequence above 67.82 m. Regional mapping indicates that these sequences are commonly associated with large-scale shelf-margin progradation and slope-front fan construction. The borehole core provides an excellent record of the transition from pre-glacial to glacial conditions in the mid-latitude NE Atlantic Ocean. Climatic conditions warmer than present prevailed in the late Oligocene, mid- to late Miocene and Pliocene, although the influx of ice-rafted detritus in the late Pliocene marks the onset of climatic deterioration. This deterioration continued, in a fluctuating manner, until the early mid-Pleistocene (0.44 Ma) when fully glacial conditions were established on the Hebridean Margin.

Abstract A borehole drilled on the top of Rosemary Bank (Rockall Trough, NE Atlantic), recovered 16.72m of basalts and volcaniclastic sediments beneath a 1.53m thick limestone with basalt clasts, biostratigraphically dated as late Maastrichtian. Magnetostratigraphic data, constrained by the biostratigraphy, indicate extrusion of Rosemary Bank basalts took place during magnetochron C31R (71–69 Ma), or possibly earlier. This provides definite proof of pre-Tertiary volcanism in the Rockall Trough, and indicates that the onset of activity in the North Atlantic Igneous Province took place at least 7 Ma earlier than the postulated arrival of the Icelandic plume at 62 Ma. Geochemical and isotopic data suggest there was an enriched component to the magmatic source. Present data cannot resolve whether the Rosemary Bank basalts are an early manifestation of the Icelandic plume, whether they were associated with a different plume, or whether they were derived from enriched upper mantle without a significant thermal anomaly.

The drilling of a cored borehole at Bradwell, Essex, has provided an opportunity to examine an unweathered and almost continuous section through equivalents of the Thanet Formation stratotype sections of northeast Kent. Calcareous nannoplankton and magnetostratigraphic analysis indicate an age range from NP6 (Chron 26N) to NP8 (Chron 25R), similar to that reported from the stratotype sections. However, whereas the base of the type Thanetian has previously been dated only as undifferentiated NP6/ NP7, the upward incoming of Sphenolithus anarrhopus in the Bradwell section provides a strong indica­ tion that both zones are represented. The association of the basal sediments with Chron 26N confirms that rhe base of the type Thanetian lies within the upper part of NP6. The relative thinness of the section attributed to NP7 in the Bradwell section appears to result from non-sequence and condensed sedimentation associated with a sequence boundary that occurs near the middle of the formation. This sequence boundary is equated with the base of the Reculver Silts in the stratotype section and with the base of the Lower Landenian in Belgium.

Abstract Lithostratigraphic studies of four borehole cores drilled through the late Paleocene Lambeth Group (Upnor, Woolwich and Reading Formations) and basal London Clay Formation of central London have been supplemented with palaeomagnetic, calcareous nannoplankton and palynological data. The Woolwich and Reading Formations and the lower London Clay Formation are reversely magnetized and were deposited during the early part of Chron C24r. The first record of both NP9 and Chron C25n, hitherto missing from the Paleogene record in southern England, has been identified in the Upnor Formation (formerly the Woolwich Bottom Bed). It provides a key reference marker for linking events associated with the Paleocene-Eocene boundary (positioned within Chron C24r) to the type area of the internationally recognized Thanetian and Ypresian Stages.

Abstract A series of six shallow gravity cores, taken from a variety of sedimentary settings in the northern Rockall Trough, have been analysed using microfossil and sedimentological techniques. Cores from sediment waves on the Barra Fan are interpreted as being sequences of hemipelagites, turbidites and hemiturbidites. Northeastern Rockall Trough cores, from slope apron, escarpment and sediment drift areas are interpreted as hemipelagites, with glaciomarine deposits interbedded with and overlain by muddy-silty and sandy contourites. The dinoflagellate cyst, planktonic foraminifera and nannofossil biostratigraphy reveals a four-fold deglaciation record, with a single long core from the Barra Fan seemingly containing all four divisions of the Late Glacial, Allerød-Bölling, Younger Dryas and Holocene intervals. The sedimentary record suggests that deglaciation in the North Atlantic Ocean was not a simple linear process but an irregular, non-linear series of rapid events characterized by sudden sea-surface temperature changes, and fluctuating bottom-current activity.