Volcanic ash in a cored borehole west of the Shetland Islands: evidence for Selandian volcanism in the Faeroes region

A volcanic ash layer, containing basic glass shards compositionally comparable to the basalts of the Faeroe-East Greenland Province, has been discovered in early Selandin sediments from a borehole W of the Shetland Isles. The available magnetostratigraphical, biostratigraphical and tephrachronological information indicates that basaltic volcanism in the province began during magnetic anomaly chron C26R, earlier than the currently accepted C24R interval, but correlating with the main period of basaltic volcanism in the British Tertiary Igneous Province.