A regional study of lower Tertiary sands in the Viking graben, northern North Sea, involving heavy mineral analysis, geophysical log interpretation, and palynologic dating, has led to the successful differentiation of sand bodies, with two distinct source areas being recognized. These both lie on the Orkney-Shetland platform, one being the metamorphic basement in the north, the other the preexisting sediments to the south, probably of Late Jurassic age.

Correlation of sand bodies by these means has led to a more complete breakdown of the depositional history of the area. Four phases of basinal subsidence and source-area uplift have been recognized in this way, and these are correlated with similar events in the central North Sea. The changes in subsidence pattern and source-area uplift are related to events in the North Atlantic prior to crustal separation between Greenland and Rockall.

Although provenance is the fundamental control on heavy-mineral distribution, intrastratal solution also plays a major role. Solution is largely a function of burial depth and it is estimated that up to 50% of the assemblage may have been lost by this process over a large part of the area.