Geochemistry of Cenozoic volcanic rocks of the Faroe Islands with a focus on their ultra-trace contents of Hg

According to geophysical research performed in the eastern part of the North Atlantic, many authors inferred that the basalt flows on the Faroe Islands overlie a continental metamorphic basement supposedly of Precambrian age. With respect to this, we focused our study on determination of ultratrace...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Šišková, P., Krmíček, L. (Lukáš), Coufalík, P. (Pavel)
Format: Conference Object
Language:English
Published: 2016
Subjects:
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/11104/0259478
Description
Summary:According to geophysical research performed in the eastern part of the North Atlantic, many authors inferred that the basalt flows on the Faroe Islands overlie a continental metamorphic basement supposedly of Precambrian age. With respect to this, we focused our study on determination of ultratrace mercury contents by means of atomic absorption spectrometry to test this hypothesis. Mercury contents in basalts seem to be a sensitive tool for distinguishing between the basalts not affected by interaction with the continental crust and the basalts enclosing crustal xenoliths. Contents of Hg show great variability between samples even within the same formation. We presume that high concentrations of Hg in some samples are related to stagnation of individual pulses of parent magma in the continental crust below the Faroe Islands.