Rit (Vísindafélag Íslendinga) - 01.07.1962, Síða 178

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to be considerably less than might be wished. With this in
mind we shall consider whether the flora in our present areas
of study leads to useful conclusions.
Heljarkinn has a cool character with a monotonous Abies-
Larix population. Pflug thinks that it may correspond to
the Lower Pleistocene of Garðendi in the Westman Isles
and perhaps to Breiðavík in Tjörnes. On the other hand
we have in Hengifossá nearly exclusively Abies pollen
and it seems possible that also Heljarkinn and Hengifossá
might correspond to each other. Thus we seem to have a very
wide space into which Heljarkinn could satisfactorily be
placed on palynological grounds.
The Vörðufell lignite contains Larix and Abies, although
sparse. But in addition we have here Alnus viridis forms as
in Breiðavík. These forms seem quite typical for the Upper-
most Pliocene to Lower Pleistocene. Vörðufell was considered
Lower Pleistocene by Pflug, but further study has led to the
possibility that it might be considered Tertiary (Schwarzbach,
private communication), and this is in keeping with our
conclusions in this paper.
The fauna of Breiðavík and the Búlandshöfði area places
these localities close to the Plio-Pleistocene boundary. On basis
of the interpretation that the 300 m stages are probably young-
er than the Búlandshöfði sendiments we have already suggest-
ed that this boundary in Iceland lies considerably before the
time usually assumed for it in more southern countries. This
is really the same as to say that these localities, and with
them probably Vörðufell, Heiðarsporðsá and Bakkabrúnir be-
long to the Upper Pliocene.
The result of these considerations seems to be that the flora,
as far as it is known, remained largely unchanged for a long
time in the Upper Tertiary and that, therefore, it is of que-
stionable use for detailed stratigraphy.