Jökull - 01.01.2005, Page 151

George P.L. Walker
Figure 4. George P.L. Walker at Diamond Head, Hawaii, 26 Januar 1989 (Photo: L.K.)
ness of the basaltic strata, as compared to that of the
Northern Ireland volcanic province. A short account
of Walker’s observations during 1955 was published
(Walker, 1955).
In the interview just quoted, Walker states that
his mapping took place in the area between Seyð-
isfjörður and Breiðamerkurjökull; the reference to
Seyðisfjörður is interesting, because he does not ap-
pear to have published his observations from there
or from the adjacent Mjóifjörður. However, in the
writer’s possession is a small-scale map confirming
that he did carry out considerable work there, at
least in 1957–1958 (Figure 1). On another undated
manuscript map in scale 1: 100,000, the positions of
certain recognizable lava groups (such as the Vindháls
porphyritic group and the Hólmar olivine group) have
been traced in some detail south and west of Seyðis-
fjörður. The present author and his associates (Krist-
jansson et al., 1995) have mapped stratigraphic pro-
files in Mjóifjörður and Seyðisfjörður. That paper is,
however, a typical example of the differences between
Walker’s procedures and subsequent studies in the
subaerially erupted lava pile of Iceland. Walker gives
a picture of the lava pile that is three-dimensional to
the full extent of available outcrops, whereas later
work on the lava stratigraphy has mostly been con-
fined to two-dimensional sections. The same may be
said to apply to the distinction betweenWalker’s work
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