Jökull


Jökull - 01.12.1982, Page 68

Jökull - 01.12.1982, Page 68
Fig. 4. Material deposited by the Katla flow of 1918, resting on undisturbed soil at Núpar. MyndL 4. Setlögfrá Kótluhlaupinu 1918 ofan á óhreyfbum jarðvegi við Núpa. The material. The material transported by the Katla flows is enormous. During less than 20 hours in the 1918 flow the ocean coast was in parts extended some 4 km offshore and out to a depth of approx. 40 m. Similarly an enormous amount of volcanic debris mainly pumice was deposited on the sandur plain. In the area between Kaplagarðar and Hjörleifshöíði some 8 m thick pumice layer was added on the sandur plain, (Einarsson 1975). A good exposure of the material is found in Sandgil (Fig. 3). The coarser material was mainly deposited on the sandur at the margins of main flow channels parallel to ílow direction. Plastic clay has also been observed in the deposits presumably derived from high-temperature geothermal areas beneath the glacier. Material from the previous Katla flows is still retained in Austurjökull and Höfðabrekkujökull (Fig. 1) which seems to derive mainly from the flow of 1721 but partly from 1755. At the western margin of the “jökull“ there is ablockofalmost undisturbed soil more than 2 m thick and more than 90 m iong (Fig. 5). Other dimensions are not known. Pres- umably this was deposited in the sea which up to 1721 was only a short distance from Skiphellir, a cave where the fishing boats were kept up to that date. Skiphellir is approx. 2. 2 km from the present beach. It is interesting to note that the coarser material is conspicuously more abundant in the upper partofa section through this material and big boulders have only been found at the top of Höfðabrekkujökull. Most of the flow material, however, consists of vol- canic pumice, ca. 95%. Same is the case in the above mentioned Sandgil. The grain size of the pumice is dominantly, or 60-70%, 0.5-4.0 mm and material <0.074 mm is only 4-6% (Fig. 8). Judged from a great many analyses kindly put at my dis- posal by Mr. Gylfi Einarsson, geologist of the Tech- nological Institute of Iceland, similar material cov- ers wide areas of Mýrdalssandur. The pumice is highly porous and non-porous grains are almost lacking. Petrographically the material from the Katla area is transitional alkali basalt Jakobsson 1979). Fig. 4 shows a section through a part of the mat- erial deposited at the margin of the flow of 12th of October 1918 at Núpar. The flow material rests on undisturbed soil. Next to the soil, i. e. at the base of the flow is a pumice layer as was mentioned above. Coarser material, clasts, mostly consisting of bas- altic rock fragments are common in the upper part of the profile and several boulders up to 1 m in diameter are found at the top. This seems to indi- cate that the coarser material was mainly transported in the upper part of the flow, on top of finer grained material mainly consisting of pumice (Fig. 7). The stratification of the pumice, both in this profile and in Sandgil, seems to indicate a laminar movement dominated at the flow base. A hugeboulder, Kötluklettur, (Fig. 6) was carried approx. 15 km by the 1918 flow. I have earlier estimated it to be 1400 metric tons Jónsson 1980), but upon reestimation the value is 64 JÖKULL 32. ÁR
Page 1
Page 2
Page 3
Page 4
Page 5
Page 6
Page 7
Page 8
Page 9
Page 10
Page 11
Page 12
Page 13
Page 14
Page 15
Page 16
Page 17
Page 18
Page 19
Page 20
Page 21
Page 22
Page 23
Page 24
Page 25
Page 26
Page 27
Page 28
Page 29
Page 30
Page 31
Page 32
Page 33
Page 34
Page 35
Page 36
Page 37
Page 38
Page 39
Page 40
Page 41
Page 42
Page 43
Page 44
Page 45
Page 46
Page 47
Page 48
Page 49
Page 50
Page 51
Page 52
Page 53
Page 54
Page 55
Page 56
Page 57
Page 58
Page 59
Page 60
Page 61
Page 62
Page 63
Page 64
Page 65
Page 66
Page 67
Page 68
Page 69
Page 70
Page 71
Page 72
Page 73
Page 74
Page 75
Page 76
Page 77
Page 78
Page 79
Page 80
Page 81
Page 82
Page 83
Page 84
Page 85
Page 86
Page 87
Page 88
Page 89
Page 90
Page 91
Page 92
Page 93
Page 94
Page 95
Page 96
Page 97
Page 98
Page 99
Page 100
Page 101
Page 102
Page 103
Page 104
Page 105
Page 106
Page 107
Page 108
Page 109
Page 110
Page 111
Page 112
Page 113
Page 114
Page 115
Page 116
Page 117
Page 118
Page 119
Page 120
Page 121
Page 122
Page 123
Page 124
Page 125
Page 126
Page 127
Page 128
Page 129
Page 130
Page 131
Page 132
Page 133
Page 134

x

Jökull

Direct Links

If you want to link to this newspaper/magazine, please use these links:

Link to this newspaper/magazine: Jökull
https://timarit.is/publication/1155

Link to this issue:

Link to this page:

Link to this article:

Please do not link directly to images or PDFs on Timarit.is as such URLs may change without warning. Please use the URLs provided above for linking to the website.