Why the West Troms Complex? 

What makes the complex exceptional? The West Troms Complex of northern Norway preserves extensive exposures of Archaean TTGs and metabasalts along the North Atlantic coast. Continuous coastal outcrops provide outstanding three-dimensional exposure of ancient continental crust, allowing geological relationships to be traced over long distances and across large areas. These extensive exposures make the complex an ideal natural laboratory for investigating the crust-forming processes through which partial melting of basalt generated the TTG magmas that built Earth's earliest continental crust.

Why does this matter scientifically? The extensive coastal exposures enable geological structures, magmatic relationships and metamorphic overprints to be mapped continuously across large areas. This makes it possible to distinguish primary crust-forming features from those produced by later tectonic deformation and metamorphism. Together, these characteristics make the West Troms Complex a unique natural laboratory for identifying the geological evidence that records how Earth's earliest continental crust was generated from basaltic precursors.