Jökull - 01.01.2012, Qupperneq 5

Sigurður Þórarinsson (1912–1983)
Sigurður Steinþórsson
Institute of Earth Sciences, University of Iceland, Askja, Sturlugata 7, 101 Reykjavík, Iceland, sigst@hi.is
Like the majority of Icelanders of his generation, Sig-
urður Þórarinsson was born and brought up at a farm,
in Vopnafjörður, NE-Iceland. Being a precocious
child he was enrolled in the Akureyri Gymnasium
from which he matriculated in 1931. Influenced by his
natural-science teacher Pálmi Hannesson, he entered
the Copenhagen University the following fall to study
geology. After one winter in Denmark, however, he
transferred to Stockholm to continue his studies, now
in geography and botany as well as geology. After re-
ceiving his doctoral degree at the University of Stock-
holm in 1944, he returned to Iceland and worked for a
while with the Research Council. In January 1947 he
became Director of the Department of Geology and
Geography, Museum of Natural History in Reykjavik,
a position he held until 1968 when he became Pro-
fessor of Geology and Geography at the University of
Iceland. While Director of the Natural History Mu-
seum he was twice appointed Professor and Direc-
tor of the Geographical Institute of Stockholm, in the
years 1950–1951 and 1953.
When Sigurður Þórarinsson began studying in
Sweden the Department at the University of Stock-
holm boasted a number of leading scientists who di-
rectly and indirectly would influence his future sci-
entific career. These included palynologist (pollen-
analyst) Lennart von Post, geomorphologist and
glaciologist Hans W:son Ahlmann, and Gerard de
Geer, the founder of varve-dating.
The first two summers Sigurður remained in Swe-
den doing field work with Prof. von Post, but when
news came in early 1934 of an eruption in Vatna-
jökull he immediately decided to return to Iceland.
Once in Reykjavík he hastened east to study the ef-
fects of the recent eruption and jökulhlaup in Vatna-
jökull. Later, in June, he happened to be in Akureyri
when the "Dalvík-earthquake" struck. Without delay
he went to village Dalvík to investigate, and there-
after spent much time gathering information about the
earthquake over much of Iceland. This work resulted
in Þórarinsson’s first scientific paper, Das Dalvik-
Beben in Nordisland 2. Juni 1934 which appeared in
Geografiska Annaler 1937. This research by the 22
year old Sigurður was the first of its kind in Iceland.
Initially, both the eruption and the earthquake
were coincidental. In a radio talk that Sigurður gave
early in 1934, entitled "The marshes can talk" and
subsequently was published in the periodical Náttúru-
fræðingurinn, he described his plan to use palynology
to read the 10.000 year long history of Icelandic soil
and vegetation. With this in mind he took up coop-
eration with Director of forestry Hákon Bjarnason on
the study of volcanic ash layers in the soils, for both
had realized the potential value of ash layers as time
markers. Their work appeared in Geografisk Tidsskrift
in 1940, (Bjarnason and Thorarinsson, see reference
list), with a map showing the uppermost three light-
colored layers identified as Askja 1875, Öræfajökull
1727 and Hekla 1300; the latter two Sigurður found
later to be Ö 1362 and H 1104.
Glaciology
The Grímsvötn eruption and jökulhlaup in 1934
marked the beginning of Sigurður Þórarinsson’s half
a century’s association with Vatnajökull, the glacier
itself as well as its volcanoes. Glaciology was to
be his second most important research subject. In
the summer of 1935 he took part in an expedition to
Eyjabakkajökull, and in 1936 he spent most of the
spring and summer on the eastern part of Vatnajökull
as a member of a major Swedish-Icelandic glaciologi-
cal initiative lead by Prof. Ahlmann and meteorologist
Jón Eyþórsson.
JÖKULL No. 62, 2012 3