Greinar (Vísindafélag Íslendinga) - 01.01.1977, Blaðsíða 118

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coast in New Foundland. We have remarked on the stability
of the American coast since Grenville, i.e. for 900—1100 My.
That stability would have had to characterize an epicontinen-
tal sea-lane, if North America and Europe were joined before
the Jurassic, and such a situation and stability we do not find
attractive. Where is the Grenville equivalent in Britain and
why is the British Caledonian not on the west side of the
Islands ?
The most straightforward interpretation of the Hercynian
orogeny in southern Britain, is that it represents an oceanic
coast that extended west to New Foundland, interrupted only
by a sea-lane up to Middle Eastern Greenland, where we find
the close faunal connection with the North Sea all the time
to the middle Jurassic (85).
In his struggle with himself, whether or not to accept con-
tinental drift, E. Bullard (83) organized an attempt to trace
by seismological evidence the Hercynian from southern Britain
to New Foundland. When no seismological evidence of this
orogenic chain could be found, Bullard considered that one
weighty argument against drift had been eliminated. Our dis-
cussion of the formation of seismic layers in Chapter 5 shows
that it would rather be a surprise, if now we found a seismo-
logical evidence of this orogenic chain on the ocean floor, very
likely underlying Tertiary basalts.
We seem quite free to assume here the south coast of a Her-
cynian land between Norway and Greenland.
After the Hercynian, a subsidence took place along the west
side of Norway, and south of it and Scania (cf. also Chapter 5).
This subsidence up along Norway amounts to 5 km and more.
Sediments filled up the sheltered area of Denmark and N-Ger-
many, and also up along Norway, where the subsidence is
considered to have started in the Jurassic. Today the inner
surface of these sediments forms a broad outer part of the
Norwegian shelf. The development did not reach an orogenic
phase, perhaps because of the lack of a mainland close at
hand to furnish the material. If sediment-providing Green-
land had been here on the west side of a lane, the chances of