Jökull - 01.10.1998, Qupperneq 7

tion of Iceland. This work includes information on the
elevation of the equilibrium line of several glaciers at
the tum of the century.
Eiríksson (1932) describes the position of several
outlet glaciers at the south-eastern margin of Vatna-
jökull and Bárðarson (1934) describes glacier varia-
tions in Iceland on the basis of old historical accounts
and other sources, including observations from the
beginning of this century. Glaciological knowledge
in Iceland before 1800 was summarised by Sigurður
Þórarinsson (Thorarinsson, 1960), but this descrip-
tion does not contain much information about glacier
variations.
Bjömsson's (1979) overview article in Jökull de-
scribes glaciers in Iceland in general and includes a
description of changes in glaciation, both prehistoric
changes and variations since the settlement of Iceland.
Maps published in 1905 by the Danish General
Staff based on surveying carried out in 1903 and 1904
(Nprlund, 1944), contain infonnation about the posi-
tion of many glacier tongues on the southem rnargin of
Fig. 2. Location maps of Drangajökull (a) and Snæfellsjökull (b).
- Yfirlitskort af Drangajökli (a) og Snæfellsjökli (b).
Vatnajökull and Mýrdalsjökull at this time. The maps
were used by Eyþórsson (1931, 1942, 1963) to estab-
lish the position of several termini in this area before
his initiation of regular glacier monitoring in 1930.
Oblique aerial photographs, taken by the Danish
General Staff in 1937 and 1938 provide some infor-
mation about the position of glaciers in several loca-
tions in Iceland. These photographs are, however, not
easily interpreted in quantitative terms and have not
been much used.
Aerial photographs take by the U.S. Army Map
Service in 1945 and 1946, and by the U.S. Defense
Mapping Agency in 1960 and 1961 cover the whole
of Iceland and provide extensive information on the
position of glaciers at two different points in time.
The earlier set of photographs is the basis of maps
published by the Army Map Service in 1949-1951 in
the scale of 1:50,000, which show the location of the
termini of most glaciers in Iceland. Another set of
1:50,000 scale maps was published by the Defence
Mapping Agency in cooperation with Landmælingar
JOKULL, No. 45, 1998
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