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SUMMARY
Asphaltic petroleum in amygdales
in Skyndidalur, Lón,
SE Iceland.
by
Sveinn P. Jakobsson
Icelandic Museum of Natural History
P.O. Box 5320
IS-125 REYKJAVÍK,
Iceland
and
Guðmundur Ó. Friðleifsson
National Energy Authority
Grensásvegur 9
1S-108 REYKJAVÍK,
Iceland.
In August 1985 an unusual amygdale
was brought to the Icelandic Museum of
Natural History by amateur rock collec-
tors. The amygdale contained asphaltic-
like material which smelled like crude oil.
This is the first discovery of petroleum in
Iceland. It was found near the centre of a
large vesicle which was lined by large clear
quartz crystals and calcite (front page).
The amygdale was collected in a basaltic
lava in a mountainous region in SE Ice-
land. The authors of this article made two
site visits in 1985.
The locality is at the snout of the
Lambatungnajökull (glacier) in Skyndi-
dalur, in Lónsöræfi, SE Iceland. The as-
phaltic petroleum occurs in amygdales in a
lava of Miocene age (about 5 m.y.) at the
base of Lambatungnatindur (figs. I, 2 &
3). Below the lava a thin lignite bed oc-
curs, which, in turn is intruded by a basal-
tic sheet (fig. 4). Fig. I shows the regional
geology (simplified after Torfason, 1979
and Fridleifsson, 1983a). The asphalt-
bearing lava is located on the flanks of the
Kollumúli central volcano in the northeast
and the Geitafell central volcano in the
southwest. Several unconformities are
found within the strata, some of which are
of importance in relation to the liydro-
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