The Nordic Volcanological Institute: understanding volcanoes at spreading centres

The Nordic countries (known as ‘Norden’) are not immediately associated with volcanoes: Norway with folded mountains cut by fjords and its offshore oil and gas deposits, Sweden and Finland by the western part of the Baltic shield, a huge area of Precambrian rocks, of which gneisses form a large part...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Published in:Geology Today
Main Author: Brooks, Kent
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: Wiley 2009
Subjects:
Online Access:http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2451.2009.00707.x
https://api.wiley.com/onlinelibrary/tdm/v1/articles/10.1111%2Fj.1365-2451.2009.00707.x
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1365-2451.2009.00707.x
Description
Summary:The Nordic countries (known as ‘Norden’) are not immediately associated with volcanoes: Norway with folded mountains cut by fjords and its offshore oil and gas deposits, Sweden and Finland by the western part of the Baltic shield, a huge area of Precambrian rocks, of which gneisses form a large part, and Denmark, a country of Mesozoic and Cenozoic rocks, where glacial, superficial deposits are of major importance. But Norden also includes Iceland, where everyone immediately thinks of volcanoes and glaciers. Clearly volcanological research would be expected to be a major priority for the Icelandic nation. However, in the other Nordic countries old volcanic and other igneous rocks play a significant role, comprising a large part of the Precambrian and Caledonian terrains and being a key to many of the commercial mineral deposits which play a major role in the economies of Norway, Sweden and Finland. Even Denmark, a country of sedimentary rocks has an impressive sequence of Paleogene volcanic ashes and the Faeroe Islands, made up almost entirely of basalts, are part of Denmark.