Greinar (Vísindafélag Íslendinga) - 01.01.1977, Side 117

115
main shore on one hand, as we see here on the east coast, and
the domination of the drainage system as we see in the Rockies
geosyncline, on the other is thus clear.
Another case we shall consider is NW-Europe and Green-
land. In Cambrian to about middle Silurian time, the east coast
of an ocean or sea lane ran along Norway and the middle of
England. The accumulation of material led to the Caledonian
orogeny. The ivestern margin of the geosyncline is taken to
be indicated by the Hebrides, so that a sea lane with sediment-
providing land on each side is really suggested.
At the same time there was a west coast of a geosyncline
along a part of present East Greenland. That coast could very
well have continued to the Caledonides in North America. If
there was a land between Greenland and Norway, having a
SE-NW striking south coast, connecting the two Caledonian
sea lanes in about the area of Britain, and persisting with
some fluctuations up to the middle of the Jurassic, the close
faunal connection up to that time, between the North Sea area
and middle East Greenland, would be well understood.
There is a way of explaining this faunal connection by assum-
ing west drift of Greenland at some time after the middle
Jurassic, as I did in 1963 and 1967 (85,86). But for another
reason that alternative is now ruled out.
As a direct evidence, let us look at the Hercynian.
The Hercjmian geosyncline was not limited to a stable clear-
cut coast, as was the case for the sediment strips from Gren-
ville to Mesozoic in E-America. Instead it must originally have
formed in shallow epicontinental waters, for its sediments are
spread over a wide zone. There was continuous shifting of
low lands and shallow seas; hence the quite exceptional con-
ditions for coal formation. In most of England and Wales
the development did not reach the stage of orogeny, the sedi-
ments not being thick enough. This was different for southern-
most Britain and parts of the continent. Por this reason we
may perhaps consider South Britain, Bretagne and the western
Iberian peninsula as a real stable oceanic coast that went on
from S-Britain nearly straight west to the inferred stable