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On the Pleistocene Rocks of Iceland and the Age of the Submarine Shelf

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 May 2009

Helgi Pjeturss
Affiliation:
Reykjavik, Iceland.

Extract

As shown by his paper on “The Age of the Rocks and Topography of Middle Northern Iceland” (Geol. Mag., LXXV, 1938, 289–296), Dr. Hawkes realizes the great change of view concerning fundamental features of Icelandic geology necessitated by my discoveries in North Iceland of Pleistocene metamorphic glacial deposits. In fact, the changes involved seem to him so great that he finds the whole thing incredible, and he rejects what he terms my hypothesis. In this incredulity, I think, is to be found the reason for his being unable to repeat for himself some observations I made on the eastern side of Fnjóskadal. That I should have been mistaken is, I think, out of the question; a typical “striated pavement” is something a geologist of some experience cannot be mistaken about. In Skridugil I exposed a surface which quite definitely exhibited traces of glacial action. That “similar deposits” to those overlying the pavement “are found at various horizons in the older Tertiary Series of Iceland” (Hawkes, op. cit., p. 293) is unknown to me. The name “Skridugil” was given to me by a man who may not have understood to which locality I was referring.

Type
Original Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1939

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References

1 Cf. his interesting paper on interglacial plant-beds in Snaefellsnes, Medd. fra Dansk Geol. Fören., 1938.