Greinar (Vísindafélag Íslendinga) - 01.01.1935, Page 75

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There is, in my opinion, no doubt that the old high
coast-line which G. G. Bárðarson discovered in Saurbær
and Borgarfjörður was formed at the same period as
when the sea reached its highest stage near Akureyri.
We came to the conclusion, independently of each other,
that coincidentally with this high shore-line the glaciers
were increasing again, and either remained stationary
or, more probably, increased for some time and advan-
ced further down the valleys. This period I call the
Akureyri-stage.
There are indeed no direct proofs that the glaciation
of Iceland was contemporaneous with the ice-age in
Northern-Europe; it is, however, extremely probable.
Knud Jessen and R. Rasmussen0 have drawn the con-
clusion from the structure of the peat-bogs in northern
Iceland that the post-glacial changes of climate in Ice-
land may be parallelled with the post-glacial changes in
the climate of Scotland. We might then expect a definite
and well marked Scandinavian stage to correspond to
the Akureyri-stage, and in this connection I am parti-
cularly reminded of the Ra-stage in Norway, which is
also distinguished by a raising of the sea-leval and a
stationary period or advance of the glacier. I should al-
so like to mention that I have calculated1 2) 3 from the
alluvial accumulation deposited by the river Eyjafjarð-
ará, that it is 9—12 thousand years since the sea-shore
was again lowered almost to the present level, and ex-
amination of the corresponding accumulation brought
down by the Héraðsvötn in Skagafjörður indicates a
similar span of time,:i) i. e. that it is 9—11 thousand
years since this lowland was formed. Now the Akureyri-
1) Knud Jessen og R. Rasmussen: Et Profil gennem en Törve-
mose paa Færöerne. Danmarks Geol. Unders. IV R., Bd. 1, No. 13,
Kbh. 1922.
2) loc. cit., p. 65.
3) Th. Thorkelsson: ísaldarmenjar og forn sjavarmörk. And-
vari, Rvík. 1924, p. 200,