Abstract In onshore areas of the British Isles, Paleogene rocks crop out mainly in two widely separated areas with greatly differing developments. Predominantly shallow-marine and marginal-marine sediments are represented in the Hampshire and London Basins in southern England; lava sheets and associated intrusive rocks in NW Scotland and northern Ireland. Marine Neogene sediments are represented almost entirely by a small Pliocene outcrop on the North Sea coast in East Anglia. Non-marine Paleogene and Neogene sediments occur mainly in small areas, except for the Lough Neagh Basin in northern Ireland (Fig. 1). Tertiary igneous rocks of the NAIP (North Atlantic Igneous Province) have a long history of intensive study; yet, for many years, Tertiary sediments had a rather subordinate role in British stratigraphy (and in stratigraphy textbooks), studied largely by a small group of geologists, but which included several outstanding stratigraphers and palaeontologists. They outcrop in a relatively limited area of the British Isles, and were difficult to date and correlate owing to the apparent lack of ‘zone fossils’ such as the ammonites or graptolites of previous eras. Their main economic value being the exploitation of sand and clay for bricks, other building materials and ceramics, they could not easily compete with Carboniferous coalfields or Jurassic iron ores for government or academic research funding.

Abstract During the past 30 years, since the first edition of this publication (Curry et al. 1978), both the absolute chronology of the Tertiary, and its calibration to other geochronological and biochronological events, have been progressively refined and stabilized. This has resulted from resolution of the relationships of successions in different areas, largely through biostratigraphy, magnetostratigraphy and improved radiometric dating. Important milestones during the earlier part of this period have been syntheses by Berggren et al. (1985, 1995), Haq et al. (1987, 1988) and Harland (1990). The Berggren et al. (1995) publication incorporated a rigorous re-evaluation of key planktonic foraminiferid and calcareous nannoplankton datums, and their calibration to the magnetostratigraphic and geochronological scale. It also incorporated the first astronomically tuned calibration of the timescale, which had been extended ‘downwards’ from the Pleistocene through the Pliocene by this time. The Berggren et al. (1995) timescale remained the standard reference for almost a decade.

Abstract In this and the following chapter, the correlation techniques applied in NW Europe (particularly in the North Sea Basin) are summarized, emphasizing their relative applicability (Fig. 8) and the history of their use. The latter aspect (pre-1978) was summarized in more detail by Curry et al. (1978, pp. 12-16). More general aspects of Tertiary biostratigraphy were discussed in some detail by Lourens et al. (2004a), Luterbacher et al. (2004), Hilgen et al. (2012) and Vandenberghe (2012).

Abstract This chapter covers non-biostratigraphic methods of dating and correlation that have been applied in NW Europe. Details of the principles, techniques and results of these methods are given in a number of publications and are not repeated here. Thorough up-to-date summaries of most are included in Gradstein et al. (2012, chapters 4-11 and, specifically for the Tertiary, chapters 28 and 29). Here their application to NW Europe is summarized; limitations and problems in their application are emphasized. The application of dating and correlation techniques to the North Atlantic Igneous Province is discussed in Chapter 7.

Abstract Sequence stratigraphic models for the Paleogene of NW Europe can be said to have already been initiated in the early nineteenth century. Cuvier & Brongniart (1811) classified the sediments of the Paris area into packages, the boundaries of which are generally regional hiatuses or unconformities. Classification of Paleogene successions on the southern margins of the North Sea Basin into transgressive-regressive ‘cycles’ by Leriche (1905), a technique adopted and extended by Stamp (1921) to the Hampshire and London Basins, was an innovative approach, well ahead of its time, which introduced order into the complex pattern of lithofacies. This approach was, however, subsequently largely neglected in favour of primarily biostratigraphic attempts at correlation, until the arrival of process-based sedimentology in the 1960s. The identification of depositional sequences in the Paleogene of southern England, based on detailed stratigraphical and sedimentological analysis, was revived by Edwards (1967), Curry et al. (1977), Plint (1980, 1983a, b) and King (1981), and has since been applied to almost all onshore Tertiary successions (e.g. Steurbaut 1998; Vandenberghe et al. 1998, 2004) for Belgium.

Abstract The distribution and structural setting of Tertiary sediments in the British Isles and adjacent areas of NW Europe largely re?ects tectonic elements (basins and highs) inherited from the major Mesozoic rifting accompanying the inception and opening of the North Atlantic, separating the North American and Eurasian plates. General aspects of Tertiary palaeogeography, basin development, tectonics and igneous activity, both in the British Isles and in wider NW European contexts, have been documented in many publications, including Ziegler (1990), Knox (2002), Evans et al. (2003), Stoker et al. (2005a, b, c), King (2006), Anell et al. (2009), Knox et al. (2010a, b), Ritchie et al. (2011), Brunstad et al. (2013) and Hitchen et al. (2013). Only a brief summary is given here based largely on these sources.

Abstract The North Atlantic Igneous Province - NAIP (Thulean Volcanic Province) - comprises large volumes of intrusive and extrusive igneous rocks. These were emplaced during crustal thinning and subsequent continental break-up and initial phases of seafloor spreading, associated with the rifting and opening of the North Atlantic between Greenland and NW Europe. The NAIP is now dismembered by the opening of the North Atlantic, with elements represented in Baffin Island (Canadian Arctic), west and east Greenland, the Faroe Islands, and in northern and western parts of the British Isles and adjacent offshore areas (Saunders et al. 1997). Igneous activity extended from latest Cretaceous to Middle Eocene, but was most intense during two phases, in the mid-Paleocene and around the Paleocene-Eocene boundary. Its wide extent, predominantly mafic composition and extensive subaerially erupted flood basalts qualify the NAIP as a Large Igneous Province (LIP) or Continental Flood Basalt Province (CFBP) (Saunders et al. 1997).

Abstract The North Sea Basin (or NW European Tertiary Basin) is by far the largest Tertiary basin in NW Europe. The main depocentres (apart from localized halokinetic subsidence features) are in the central and northern North Sea. The Tertiary North Sea Basin lies between the Variscan and Caledonian massifs of the Pennines, the Scottish Highlands, Fennoscandia and the Rhenish-Bohemian Massif. It is centred on a series of Mesozoic rifts running through the North Sea, which are the sites of the greatest water depths and the highest rates of sedimentation (Figs 9 & 19). Most of this area is characterized by marine sediments, probably with relatively narrow peripheral areas of marginal-marine and non-marine sediments: these have now largely been eroded by basin margin uplift, except around the southern and SE margins of the Basin.

Abstract The lower and upper boundaries of this interval correspond to the boundaries of the Danian. The basal surface is everywhere well defined, and through much of the basin is apparently conformable (at the level of biostratigraphic resolution) or a minor disconformity, except in areas subject to halotectonics. High-resolution biostratigraphic data at this level is, however, very limited. In Denmark, where high-resolution biostratigraphy is available, both conformable and disconformable contacts have been identified. Towards the basin margins, and over some structural features, the basal contact develops into a major unconformity in some areas. The boundary is sharply defined biostratigraphically, marked by the major biotic turnover at the Cretaceous-Tertiary (K-T) boundary.

Abstract This chapter includes the Mid Paleocene-Early Eocene succession of East Anglia and the Late Paleocene-Mid Eocene succession of the London Basin. Reworked Danian microfossils in the London Basin are dealt with in Chapter 9. Neogene and early Quaternary deposits of East Anglia and the London Basin are included in Chapter 13, alongside their counterparts in adjacent areas of the southern North Sea. The Paleogene stratigraphy of these areas is summarized in Figure 118.

Abstract The Hampshire Basin was first characterized by Prestwich (1847a, b) as a tectonic/depositional feature (as the ‘Isle of Wight Basin ’). It is an east-west-orientated, broadly synclinal but asymmetrical structure, within which are smaller similarly orientated folds, preserving up to 800 m of Paleogene strata. It extends from southern England into the eastern English Channel (Figs 42, 135 & 136). It is limited in the south by the steep, en echelon monoclinal Purbeck 2 Isle of Wight folds. Upper Paleocene-lowest Oligocene strata are represented. Upper Eocene and Early Oligocene strata are preserved only in the northern half of the Isle of Wight and adjacent areas of SW Hampshire. The coastal cliff and foreshore exposures in the Hampshire Basin, particularly in the Isle of Wight, are the most extensive Paleogene sections in NW Europe, and have been studied since the late eighteenth century. Many other exposures and boreholes, including deep holes drilled for petroleum exploration, have contributed to the database. Recent remapping of large areas by the British Geological Survey (BGS), including several deep cored boreholes, has enabled a comprehensive revised stratigraphic framework for much of the succession (Edwards & Freshney 1987a, b; Insole & Daley 1985; Daley 1999; Daley & Balson 1999; King 2006).

Abstract Seafloor mapping and seismic surveys, from the 1950s onwards, discovered that Paleogene sediments are present over a wide area in a wide shallow synclinal structure in the eastern English Channel, extending almost to the French coast. This subsea syncline was named the Dieppe Basin (Roberts 1989), and was originally believed to be separated from the Hampshire Basin. Further subsea investigations showed that there is a continuous Paleogene outcrop between this area and the Hampshire Basin (Fig. 42) (Balson in Hamblin et al. 1992, fig. 51). When this continuity was demonstrated, the whole structure was named the Hampshire-Dieppe Basin (Curry & Smith 1975), but it is useful to maintain both terms for descriptive purposes. Small onshore Paleogene outliers, including the Newhaven Outlier on the East Sussex coast in southern England (Figs 42, 158 & 160), and on and near the coast of NW France (including the ‘Dieppe outliers’), are now recognized to be outliers of the Dieppe Basin.

Abstract Almost 20 basins filled by largely or wholly non-marine Paleogene sediments have been identi?ed in a roughly north-south zone extending from the Bovey Basin in south Devon to the Little Minch Basin in the Hebrides (Figs 42 & 165). The largest onshore basin is the Lough Neagh Basin, in Northern Ireland (c. 500 km2). Almost all are fault-controlled extensional basins. Many are half-graben, some are pull-apart basins adjacent to strike-slip faults. The best-documented of these faults is the Sticklepath-Lustleigh Fault, a reactivated Variscan fault zone at least 200 km long. Most basins have an initial fill of coarse clastic alluvial fan and fluvial sediments, which fine upwards to alluvial and lacustrine clays, often with thick lignites. The Paleogene fill unconformably overlies Mesozoic or older rocks. In basins in the SW of this area (e.g. Stanley Bank Basin, South Celtic Sea Basin), records of glauconite and dinoflagellates indicate marine in?uence at some levels, reflecting proximity to the North Atlantic.

Abstract The (Late Cretaceous-Tertiary) Western Approaches Basin trends ENE-WSW, extending 400 km from the western English Channel to the North Atlantic continental slope. It overlies the Western Approaches Trough, a Permian-mid-Cretaceous rifted basin, inverted in the mid-Cretaceous. It is bounded to the north and south by Variscan basement massifs; the Cornubian Massif to the north and the Armorican Massif to the south (Figs 42 & 167). It is entirely subsea, except for small outliers in Cornwall and on the Cotentin peninsula (see below). It lies partly in the UK offshore sector and partly in the French sector

Abstract In response to the disintegration of Pangaea in the late Palaeozoic, with crustal extension propagating episodically northwards from the central Atlantic (Johnston et al. 2001), a series of extensional sedimentary rift basins developed on the continental shelf west and north of Ireland, forming a North Atlantic borderland basin system. The structural framework was largely inherited from Caledonian and older tectonic lineaments. These basins include the Porcupine Basin, and the Slyne, Erris and Rockall Troughs. The detailed depositional history varies from basin to basin, but overall patterns are similar. Basin development began in the Permian or Triassic, with the main rifting phase in the Late Jurassic and Early Cretaceous. This was followed by post-rift subsidence of the major basins, mostly to bathyal depths, in the early Cenozoic, interrupted by several Cenozoic episodes of regional uplift or tilting (Naylor & Shannon 2005; Praeg et al. 2005; Stoker et al. 2010).

Abstract The Rockall Basin is a large NE-SW-trending basin, approximately 800 km in length, underlying the deep-water Rockall Trough (Figs 1, 170 & 171). (N.B. Rockall Trough, Rockall Plateau and other topographical terms have also been commonly applied to the corresponding structural features. In the Irish sector, these are now differentiated as Basins and Highs (Naylor et al. 1999), but this terminology is not always followed in the UK sector (see Stoker et al. 2001).)

Abstract The Rockall Plateau is an elevated topographical subsea feature, rising above sea level only at the islet of Rockall. It is a microcontinent, underlain by continental crust, bounded to the west, NW and south by North Atlantic oceanic crust, and to the east by the thinned continental crust and oceanic crust underlying the Rockall Trough. The Rockall Plateau comprises the upstanding topographical features of Rockall Bank and Hatton Bank, separated by the Hatton Basin. The Edoras Bank forms the southern boundary of the Hattion Basin, connecting the Rockall Bank and Hatton Bank (Fig. 170). Rockall Bank overlies the Rockall High, formed by continental (Precambrian) basement. Hatton Bank overlies the Hatton High, apparently formed by Palaeozoic? and Mesozoic sediments. In the intervening Hatton Basin (formerly the Hatton-Rockall Basin), a thick section of presumed Mesozoic sediments underlies a sedimentary Cenozoic section.

Abstract A thick and extensive sheet of Paleogene flood basalts (Faroe Volcanic Group (FVG)) dominates this area, extending over a wide area from the seawards-dipping reflectors (SDRs) at the oceanic margin to the Faroe-Shetland Basin (FSB) and the Wyville-Thomson Ridge, cropping out extensively at the sea-floor (Figs 171 & 176). In most areas, the pre-FVG (‘subbasalt’) section is almost unknown due to difficulties in seismic interpretation below the basalts and very limited penetration by wells. To the east and SE of the Faroe Islands, the upper surface of the FVG forms a relatively flat platform (Faroe Platform), dipping gently SE. To the south and SW of the Faroe Islands, however, it has been deformed by post-FVG tectonics into a series of basins and highs, with thick overlying Cenozoic sediments in some areas. These areas are summarized here, approximately from south to north (Figs 180 & 181).