Biostratigraphic evidence of the presence of Early Jurassic flood basalts on the Franz Josef Land Archipelago is presented. The flood basalts form a two-unit layered section not encountered in Early Cretaceous basalts. The lower unit is composed of large-columnar basalts (colonnade), and the upper unit is composed of small-columnar (entablature) chaotic-fan basalts. The basalt flow on Hooker Island is exposed on the Sedov Plateau, Cape Lunacharsky Rock, and, possibly, on Cape Albanov. On the southern slope of the Sedov Plateau, the basalt flow overlaps sands and sandstones, which contain the lower Toarcian palynocomplex. The sands underlying basalts, which crop out in Cape Lunacharsky Rock, belong to the Pliensbachian–early Toarcian chronostratigraphic interval. Apart from Hooker Island, we observed basalts with the "colonnade/entablature" on three other islands: Scott Keltie, May, and Leigh-Smith. The most complete section was described in the western part of Leigh-Smith Island, where basalts are underlain and overlain by sand units. The underlying sands in contact with basalts have a quenching zone, while there is no quenching zone at the contact with the overlapping sands. The palynocomplex from the lower sand unit is early Toarcian. The palynocomplex found in the upper sand unit indicates its accumulation in the interval from the lower part of the late Toarcian to early Aalenian. The palynological analysis of the underlying and overlying deposits of the basalt flow has revealed that the latter is underlain by Pliensbachian–upper early Toarcian continental and coastal-marine deposits. The basalt flow is overlain by the earliest late Toarcian–early Aalenian marine sediments. According to the modern chronostratigraphic chart, the age of the basalt flow can be estimated at approximately 180 Ma, which is quite consistent with the earlier obtained 40Ar/39Ar data of 189.1 ± 11.4 Ma. These data indicate that the basalt flow was formed during a narrow stratigraphic interval of the end of the early–beginning of the late Toarcian. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]