One of the most interesting geologically of the world's smaller islands, Barbados has become celebrated both for its uplifted deep-sea facies and for its uplifted Pleistocene coral reefs. The structure discloses an asymmetric uplift on the E and a flattening on the N and S.
The core of the island consists of the New Scotland Beds, at least 200 m thick, outcropping on the east coast; these are possibly Cretaceous to Eocene in age. The upper part contains Nummulites . The facies is bathyal to abyssal with mainly terrigenous material in turbidite relationships, showing much slumping and penecontemporaneous disturbance, in short, a flysch facies. It has been interpreted as a major olistostrome (gravity slide) by Daviess, S. N. Daviess (1971). In these sands and clays there are some asphaltic beds.
Overlying these beds unconformably follows the Oceanic series, particularly in the southwestern part of the island and on Mt. Hillaby, with 190 m of deep marine facies, in five formations: (1) Globigerina...
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Fairbridge, R.W. (1975). Barbados . In: World Regional Geology. Encyclopedia of Earth Science. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-31081-1_15
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-31081-1_15
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