The lower Tertiary Faeroe basalt plateau is centred around the Faeroe Islands in the northern part of the supposed Faeroe-Rockall microcontinent. It consists of subaerial lavas, divided into three formations. The lower formation is probabty thickest (> 3 km) in the southern or central part of the islands, whereas the middle and upper formations are probably thickest (> 2 km in total) just N of the Faeroes, close to the line of opening between the Faeroes and Greenland. The lower formation consists of tholeiites relatively low in TiO2. The lower part of the middle formation shows an upward progression from high-Ti olivine tholeiites to high-Ti thoteiites, whereas the entire upper and rest of the middle formations consists of a contrasting population of high-Ti tholeiites and low-Ti MORB-like olivine tholeiites to tholeiites. The MORB type is confined to the northern Faeroes, increasing in abundance upwards. Similar MORB-like basalts have been recovered from further SW along the microcontinent (Faeroe Bank, Bill Bailey Bank, Lousy Bank and the Rockall Plateau), being associated with high-Ti tholeiites near the Faeroes and away from the Tertiary line of opening (Faeroe and Bill Bailey Banks). In addition, transitional to mildly alkaline basalts have been recovered on the E side of the Faeroe Bank Channel and on Bill Bailey Bank.Based on field revision of the magnetostratigraphy of the Sower formation it is tentatively suggested that the lower formation was extruded during chrons C26R to C25N and the two higher formations during C24R. Accumulation rates seem to have varied systematically and to have been related to the abundance and type of sediments between the lavas, which may indicate that extrusive activity ceased in the Faeroes before the opening of the NE Atlantic in C24R, and explain the presence of conjugate strike-slip faults in the NW Faeroes.The spatial distribution of the various basalt types fits a model of shifting axes of intraplate volcanicity, shifting from the Faeroes to E Greenland and in part back again.

Before continental break-up in the NE Atlantic, the Faeroe Islands and central East Greenland were within a distance of 100–120 km. Chemical and lithological data for complete sections through the 5 km thick piles of contemporaneous Palaeogene flood basalts in the Faeroe Islands and in the Nansen Fjord area in East Greenland show very similar basalt compositions and evolution patterns with time. The Faeroes lower basalt formation and the equivalent Nansen Fjord Formation in East Greenland form a pre-break-up succession overlain by a sediment horizon. A syn-break-up succession consists of the Faeroes middle and upper basalt formations and the equivalent Milne Land Formation in East Greenland in which five intervals can be correlated with a compositional evolution from Ti-rich magnesian basalts and picrites at the base to a dominance of MORB -like low-Ti basalts at the top. The successions were generated in the same mantle melting column beneath a thinning continent with a rift zone that eventually ruptured the continent. The evolution pattern is very similar to that seen on the SE Greenland margin, but spreading according to the Palmason model of 1973 was not yet established. The pre- and syn-break-up successions formed volcanic megasystems stretching across the rift zone with areal extents of 70 000 and 220 000 km 2 and volumes of 120 000 and 250 000 km 3 . Rocks from the pre- and syn-break-up successions can be discriminated based on a simple major-element plot. The overlying succession was 3–3.5 km thick in E Greenland but was thin or absent in the Faeroes; the energy source for the melting appears to have been concentrated on the Greenland side.

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This chapter provides a lithostratigraphic correlation and the present knowledge of the depositional history of the Tertiary succession of the Scandinavian countries. The succession records an initial phase of carbonate deposition in the early Paleocene. This was succeeded by deposition of deep marine clays with intercalation of sand-rich mass-flow deposits during most of the Paleocene and Eocene. Volcanic activity in the North Atlantic was extensive at the transition from the Paleocene to the Eocene resulting in widespread sedimentation of ash-rich layers in the North Sea area. During the Oligocene, the first prograding deltaic complex developed, sourced from the Fennoscandian Shield. Late Oligocene-Early Miocene inversion and uplift of Norway and the Shetland Platform resulted in major progradation of coastal and delta plain systems. At the end of the Tertiary most of the North Sea basin was filled and the Fennoscandian Shield was flanked to the west by a broad, coalesced coastal plain. The Cretaceous/Tertiary boundary event (c. 65 Ma) is represented in Denmark by the distinctive Fish Clay, well exposed in the cliff at Stevns. In Denmark and the North Sea the Danian succession consists of up to 350 m thick limestone and chalk. Two main facies are