The structural history of Norway and its relation to Great Britain

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Abstract
Summary: The rocks of Norway do not seem to afford evidence of any close geological relation to Great Britain during Archaean time. The birth of the Caledonian geosyncline initiated a fairly intimate connexion, especially with Scotland. A similarity in sedimentary facies and in volcanicity is especially marked in the Ordovician. The " Eocambrian " or " Sparagmite Formation " of Norway has been found to be of great importance in the history of the Caledonian zones of the North Atlantic region. This sedimentary complex, which consists principally of sandstones, with a tillite in its upper part, is stratigraphically and tectonically closely related to the Cambro-Silurian sediments, and equivalent formations are significant in the geology of Scotland. The unassorted " boulder-beds " of the Dalradian in Islay and at Schichallion in Perthshire may well be tillites of corresponding age. There appears to be a natural correlation, too, between the Moinian and the highly metamorphic Eocambrian rocks of Norway. Old Red sediments of the coastal districts of southern Norway have been subjected to very strong compressive movements : this suggests that the Fennoscandian area at that time existed as a large, rigid block along the border of which broke the " waves " of this posthumous folding. The structure of the igneous complexes of the Oslo region, of Permian age, with ring fractures as a dominant characteristic, show similarities to both Devonian and Tertiary plutonic centres of Scotland. The faulting just outside the plutonic masses of the Oslo region evidently has close genetic connexion with magmatic processes. The Tertiary uplift of the Scandinavian land-mass is discussed in connexion with submarine relief features off the Norwegian coast, believed to bear witness to marginal fracture-lines.

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