Abstract
ROCKALL PLATEAU (Fig. 1) is a well defined shoal area of depth less than 1,500 m, some 450 by 600 km in extent and separated from the continental shelf around Great Britain by the Rockall Trough, 2,700 m deep. In the NE corner of Rockall Plateau, Rockall Island is made of aegirine granite of Lower Eocene age1,2. A recent magnetic survey in the vicinity shows this to be part of a planated Tertiary volcanic centre3. A review of the geological and geophysical data over Rockall Plateau and the neighbouring deep ocean (unpublished results of D. G. R.) suggests that the plateau has many of the characteristics of continental structures and that it may be a continental fragment separated from Europe and Greenland during the break-up of Laurasia as suggested by Bullard, Everett and Smith4.
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References
Sabine, P. A., Proc. Geol. Soc., 51, 1621 (1965).
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Roberts, D. G., Nature, 223, 819 (1969).
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Avery, O. E., Vogt, P. R., and Higgs, R. H., Trans. Amer. Geophys. Un., 50, 184 (1969).
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ROBERTS, D., BISHOP, D., LAUGHTON, A. et al. New Sedimentary Basin on Rockall Plateau. Nature 225, 170–172 (1970). https://doi.org/10.1038/225170b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/225170b0
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