Jökull - 01.12.1956, Page 4

Fig. 1. Svínafellsjökull and Skaftafellsjökull in Öræfi. Stóralda (cf. figs. 4 and 5) is visible in front of Svina-
fellsjökull. Approx. scale 1:33000. Aerial photo A. Bödvarsson 15 Sept. 1954.
glaciers advanced a little further than during
the last few centuries” (op. cit., p. 250). This
statement was based on stuclies during trips
through Austur-Skaftafellssýsla in 1945 and
1948, when I i. a. studied the extension of a
rhyolitic tephra layer found everywliere in soil
profiles in these districts and could prove that
this layer was deposited by the eruption of Or-
æfajökull in 1362 A.D. The glacier tongues I
had in rnind when writing the statement quo-
ted above, were especially Svínafellsjökull and
Kvíárjökull in Öræfi. I had also in mind
terminal moraines in Stadardalur in Suðursveit
inside which the tephra-layer of 1362 is
found, as pointed out to me already cluring my
stay there in June 1934 by Skarphédinn Gísla-
son of Vagnsstadir, but at that tirne neither I
nor anyone else did have any proof of the age
of this layer. In a paper of 1946 I expressed the
opinion that bitth the Stadardalur moraine ancl
a moraine in front of SE Breidamerkurjökull
that was overrun by this glacier in 1869, were
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