The Shetland and Orkney islands lie to the N of Scotland on the continental shelf of the British Isles (q.v.) The 200-odd islands have an area of 2370 km2 and a maximum elevation of 475 m. On exposed coasts the cliffs reach a maximum height of 430 m and plunge to a well-marked submarine change of slope at −80 m in Orkney and −90 m in Shetland. The cliffed coastline is interrupted by drowned valleys in which Holocene peat has been found at depths down to 9 m, indicating rapid and continuing submergence. The raised beaches so characteristic of the Scottish coast pass beneath sea level in Orkney and are not found in Shetland.
During the late Devensian, Orkney was covered by ice from Scotland, but Shetland was covered by its own ice cap. The margin of this ice cap has been found some 60 km to the E and SE in the North Sea and in the two most northerly islands of Shetland (Flinn, 1983). A single Norwegian erratic provides the only evidence for an earlier glaciation from Norway.
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Flinn, D. (1997). Great Britain: Shetland and Orkney islands. In: Encyclopedia of European and Asian Regional Geology. Encyclopedia of Earth Science. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/1-4020-4495-X_40
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/1-4020-4495-X_40
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