Glacial Erratics from the Sea Floor South-East of the Faeroe Islands and the Limit of Glaciation

Abstract

On the outer shelf and slope south-east of the Faeroe Islands down to 300 meters depth, 82 percent of the erratics consist of basalt and 14 percent of tuff carbonate sediments. At 400 to 700 meters depth these rock types only constitute 54 percent of the erratics, the rest being mainly sandstones and gneisses of distant origin. This sudden increase in the proportion of foreign erratics is probably caused by the front of the Faeroese ice sheet preventing ice-rafting over the shelf during the last glacial epoch.