Greinar (Vísindafélag Íslendinga) - 01.01.1976, Page 98

ON TECTONICS AND TECTONIC POSITION
OF ICELAND
V. V. BELOUSSOV and YE. YE. MILANOVSKY
Soviet Geophysical Committee
Molodezhnaya 3, Moscow B-296
ABSTRACT
The article describes the basic geological results of the Soviet Geodynamics
Expedition to Iceland. The observations on land and in the surrounding seas
provided for a conclusion, that in this part of the North Atlantic land was in exis-
tence till the end of the Miocene, onto which in the Paleocene and the Miocene
outflowed the plateau-basalts. In the Pliocene the land began to subside and its
continental crust started its transformation into the oceanic one. Simultaneously
the rift structures of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge penetrated here. At the latitude of
Iceland any considerable drifting apart of continents framing the ocean is
excluded.
INTRODUCTION
Iceland is traditionally considered to be part of the Rritish-Arctic
plateau-basalt province (e.g., see 46, pp. 221-226, and long list of
references). It was supposed that the plateau-basalts of Iceland, as
well as the plateau-basalts of the Faroe Islands and Greenland,
were formed on land, which later broke up and sank below sea level.
Iceland is the remaining bit of this land. This point of view was
suggested in the works by De Geer more than sixty years ago (9).
Special attention was drawn to Iceland during the last 15-20
years, when the system of mid-ocean ridges of the rift structure
was discovered and when to these ridges was allotted an exceptional
role in the geological development of not only oceans, but also the
lithosphere of the Earth as a whole. The position of Iceland exactly
on the axis of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge made it probable that on this
island direct geological methods could be used for the study of the