Geological processes in the British Isles
Skip contents

Contents

  • Introduction
  • Learning outcomes
  • 1 Landscape formation
  • 2 Geological time-scales – a brief review
  • 3 A global view of Earth history
  • 4 Plate tectonics reviewed
    • 4.1 Introduction
    • 4.2 Revealing past plate tectonic events
    • 4.3 Continental extension
      • 4.3.1 Stage 1: Continental rifting (northern Red Sea stage)
      • 4.3.2 Stage 2: Embryonic ocean basin formation (southern Red Sea stage)
      • 4.3.3 Stage 3: Passive continental margin formation
    • 4.4 Closure of an ocean
    • 4.5 How wide were the oceans?
    • 4.6 Continental collision
  • 5 The main lithotectonic units of the British Isles
    • 5.1 Introduction
    • 5.2 Precambrian and Lower Palaeozoic Basement
    • 5.3 Caledonian Orogenic Belt
    • 5.4 Older Cover
    • 5.5 Variscan Orogenic Belt
    • 5.6 Younger Cover
  • 6 Conclusion
  • 7 Course questions
  • Acknowledgements

ou logoCreative Commons non-commercial share alike icon Except for third party materials and otherwise stated in the acknowledgements section, this content is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 Licence

Please see full copyright statement and terms of use for more details.