Fifty years of geological research in and around the Falkland Islands

To mark the 50th issue of The Falkland Islands Journal, this article reviews the progress that has been made in understanding the archipelago’s geology since the first issue was published in 1967. Several different factors have interacted to make progress possible. A scientific revolution – plate tectonics – fundamentally altered the way in which regional geological evidence was assessed, huge technical advances led to hitherto unimaginable datasets, the political landscape was transformed by the events of 1982 and, not least, the economic potential of the offshore sedimentary basins (Figure 1) has been recognised and investigated.