Jökull - 01.12.1982, Page 3

Sigurður Þórarinsson
The volumes oí'Jökull for 1982 and 1983 are dedicated to Professor Sigurdur Thorarinsson on
the occasion of his 70th birthday on the 8th January 1982
Sigurdur Thorarinsson has played an important
role in research and education in Iceland for many
years and has obtained international renown for
his contributions to glaciology, geomorphology,
volcanology and tephrochronology. For fifty years
he has described the nature of Iceland and its
continuous changes, documented volcanic activi-
ties, glacier variations, jökulhlaups and earth-
quakes, dug out concealed data from past centur-
ies and reevaluated historical documents, reported
on the continuous struggle of the Icelandic nation
against the powers of nature. He has educated and
entertained his colleagues, students and the public
with everlasting enthusiasm, assisted foreign visi-
tors with devotedness, and spread knowledge
about Iceland in praised lectures all over the
world.
Sigurdur obtained his early scientific training in
Stockholm in the 1930s where he became inspired
by the worldleading scientists Gerard De Geer,
Lennard von Post and Hans W.son Ahlmann. His
first studies in glaciology were made in Swedish
Lappland in the summer of 1933 and on Skeidarár-
sandur in Iceland after the jökulhlaup and the
Grímsvötn eruption in 1934. In 1936—38 he
participated in the Swedish —Icelandic Vatna-
jökull expedition and in 1939 he obtained his fil.lic.
for his studies on the flow and drainage of Hoffells-
jökull and ice-dammed lakes in Iceland. In 1940
he published a comprehensive review on the present
glacier shrinkage and eustatic changes of sea-level
and in 1943 he added the paper Oscillations of the
Iceland Glaciers during the last 250 years..
Sigurdur has written about 50 papers on glacio-
logy, mainly on jökulhlaups, glacier variations,
surges and reports on'yx^cditions to Vatnajökull.
In 1974 — 40 years after his first studies of Skeidar-
ársandur — he published a book on the history of
volcanic eruptions and jökulhlaups from Gríms-
vötn.
Volcanology has been Sigurdur’s other main field
of research. He has been blessed with more volca-
nic eruptions than any other Icelandic geologist
and actively studied all of them: Hekla 1947—48,
1970, 1980, 1981; Askja 1961; Surtsey 1963-67;
Heimaey 1973 and the Krafla activities since 1975.
Furthermore, he has developed tephrochronology
to a powerful tool which he successfully has used in
studies of the eruption history of various volca-
JÖKULL 32. ÁR 1