Illite diagenesis in Tertiary and Mesozoic shales in the Bergen High area, northern North Sea, was studied using mineralogic, isotopic, and computerized thermal modeling techniques. The Tertiary shales are dominated by smectite, with lesser amounts of illite, kaolinite, and chlorite. At present burial temperatures of >70°C smectite is absent, and the shales contain abundant lath-shaped illite which yields a mixed-layer illite/smectite (I/S) X-ray powder diffraction (XRD) pattern. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) indicates that the illite laths increase in abundance and thickness with increasing depth; XRD patterns indicate a progressive increase in the illite component of the I/S. The deepest samples were found to contain long-range ordered (R=3) I/S, which showed platy particle morphology with the TEM. K-Ar ages of most of the <0.1-μm-size illite separates imply that illitization was a relatively brief event affecting a thick sequence of sediments during late Cretaceous to early Paleocene time (65–87 Ma); however, measured ages were affected by trace levels of detrital Ar contamination and do not represent the true age of diagenesis.

Several methods of quantifying Ar contamination were used to correct measured ages to obtain a reasonable estimate of the true age of diagenesis. The corrected ages are imprecise due to uncertainties in quantifying the levels of sample contamination, but generally suggest a Paleogene (38–66 Ma) period of illitization. In contrast, simple kinetic models of smectite-illitization suggest much younger ages of diagenesis (0–40 Ma at the Veslefrikk field; 0–60 Ma at the Huldra field). The timing of the diagenesis and the morphologic aspects of the authigenic illite suggest that illite precipitated before late Tertiary compaction and resulted in a decrease in fluid permeability. Low trapping efficiency of early Tertiary sediments, vertical escape of warm fluid from the Brent sandstone, and high heat flow may have promoted illite diagenesis in the shales prior to deep late-Tertiary burial.

As plots of K-Ar ages vs. percentage of the detrital component of mineral mixtures containing a detrital and a diagenetic illite (or illite-smectite) have different curved shapes, the linear extrapolation method of extracting the end-member ages is not justified. The curvature depends on the difference in K2O contents; thus it can be minimized if the percentage of detrital illite is normalized to the sum of detrital illite plus illitic fraction of diagenetic illite-smectite.

Trachyandesite lava flows and trachytic dykes exposed at ‘Gandalf Ridge’ and near Lake Morning on the northern slopes of Mount Morning represent the oldest exposed volcanic rocks in the Erebus volcanic province of the McMurdo Volcanic Group. Conventional whole rock K-Ar age determinations show the rocks are mid-Miocene, ranging between 14.6 and 18.7 Ma. North–south trending faults, which parallel the Transantarctic Mountains, cut the dated dykes. The faults are probably part of a broad fault zone which bounds the uplifted Transantarctic Mountains and the down-dropped Ross Sea/Ross Ice Shelf embayment.

K-Ar whole-rock dating of five samples of quartz-mica schist from the Nordenskjöld Coast, eastern Graham Land, provides the first unequivocal evidence of pre-Triassic (> 249 ± 7 Ma) deposition of a sequence regarded as part of the Trinity Peninsula Group (TPG). A maximum age range of latest Carboniferous (< c. 300 Ma)–Permian for deposition of the Nordenskjöld Coast sequence is indicated, and a polymetamorphic, polydeformational history for the TPG in northern Graham Land. However, the possibility exists that the rocks dated here from the Nordenskjöld Coast are part of a hitherto-unrecognized metamorphic basement unrelated to and older than the mainly Triassic TPG outcrops farther north. The new ages confirm the existence of a previously poorly-defined regional metamorphic event in the Antarctic Peninsula at about 245–250 Ma ago.