In the last two years the Reykjanes peninsula in SW Iceland has erupted nine times along a series of fissure zones. These eruptions result in spectacular lava fountains along the fissures which sometimes stretch over two kilometers in length with heights over 100 meters.

The Scourie dykes are an extensive NW-SE trending dyke swarm with some individual dykes over 50 m in width and 10 kms in length. 2,200 million years ago the area containing the Scourie dykes would have been under extension and an estimate from the mapped dykes indicates that the landmass underwent horizontal extension of over 3 kms.

Using the fissure eruptions from Iceland as an analogue this talk will illustrate what the land surface might have looked like at the time of formation of the Scourie dykes. The possible plate tectonic setting of NW Scotland during this time will also be discussed.

Short Bio

I am a retired structural geologist with a PhD in earth’s crust and mantle behaviour at mid-ocean ridge spreading centres. I spent my professional career as an oil explorer all over the world. In my retirement I returned to my geological roots in the north west of Scotland with a particular interest in the plate tectonic evolution of the area.

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