Table Of ContentIceland Within the Northern Atlantic 2
SCIENCES
Geoscience, Field Director – Yves Lagabrielle
Lithosphere-Asthenosphere Interactions, Subject Head – René Maury
Iceland Within the
Northern Atlantic 2
Interactions between
Volcanoes and Glaciers
Coordinated by
Brigitte Van Vliet-Lanoë
First published 2021 in Great Britain and the United States by ISTE Ltd and John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
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ISTE Ltd John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
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© ISTE Ltd 2021
The rights of Brigitte Van Vliet-Lanoë to be identified as the author of this work have been asserted by
her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
Library of Congress Control Number: 2021934743
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978-1-78945-015-6
ERC code:
PE10 Earth System Science
PE10_5 Geology, tectonics, volcanology
PE10_13 Physical geography
PE10_18 Cryosphere, dynamics of snow and ice cover, sea ice, permafrosts and ice sheets
Contents
List of Abbreviations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix
Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xv
Brigitte VAN VLIET-LANOË and Françoise BERGERAT
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xix
Brigitte VAN VLIET-LANOË and René MAURY
Chapter 1. Young Icelandic Volcanism and its Implications . . . . . 1
René MAURY and Brigitte VAN VLIET-LANOË
1.1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.2. Icelandic magma series . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.2.1. Lava types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.2.2. Geochemical diversity of young Icelandic basalts
and their sources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
1.2.3. Some geochemical constraints concerning the origin
and geodynamic evolution of Iceland . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
1.3. Central volcanoes and active fissural systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
1.3.1. Central volcanoes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
1.3.2. Fissural volcanism and subaerial lava flows . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
1.3.3. Hydromagmatism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
1.4. Volcanic hazards in Iceland . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
1.4.1. Hazards related to lava flows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
vi Iceland Within the Northern Atlantic 2
1.4.2. Hazards related to explosions and gas emissions . . . . . . . . . . 32
1.4.3. Jökulhlaups and associated hazards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
1.4.4. Icelandic dust: a consequence of volcanism . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
1.5. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
Chapter 2. Volcanism and Glaciations: Forcings and
Chronometers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
Hervé GUILLOU, René MAURY and Brigitte VAN VLIET-LANOË
2.1. Subglacial volcanic landforms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
2.1.1. Subglacial isolated volcanoes or tuyas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
2.1.2. Hyaloclastite ridges or tindar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
2.2. Volcanism, deglaciation and climate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
2.2.1. General features: deglaciation, discharge and partial
melting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
2.2.2. Deglaciation and climate feedback . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
2.3. The hypothesis of a link between volcanism and climate
and its test by dating . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
2.3.1. The K-Ar chronometer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
2.3.2. The combination of K-Ar and 40Ar/39Ar methods
for dating Icelandic volcanism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
2.3.3. A link between volcanism and climate according to
K-Ar ages? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
2.3.4. A rhyolitic volcanism synchronous with deglaciations? . . . . . . 88
2.4. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
Chapter 3. Cenozoic Evolution of Iceland and the
Cryosphere . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
Brigitte VAN VLIET-LANOË and Hervé GUILLOU
3.1. Ice ages and the opening of the Atlantic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
3.1.1. The Middle and Final Miocene cooling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
3.1.2. The acceleration of the Middle Pliocene . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
3.1.3. The Middle Pleistocene Transition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
3.1.4. The initiation of thermohaline circulation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
3.2. Iceland’s Quaternary glaciations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
3.2.1. Conditions for the development and functioning
of ice caps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
3.2.2. Glacio-isostasy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
3.2.3. Icelandic data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
3.2.4. The Icelandic record . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
Contents vii
3.3. The last glacial episode and its deglaciation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142
3.3.1. The Weichselian . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142
3.3.2. The Last Glacial Maximum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144
3.3.3. Deglaciation and the Holocene . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150
3.4. Iceland today, its climate and vegetation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
3.4.1. The climate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
3.4.2. Ocean circulation and climate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162
3.4.3. Soil, people and climate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167
3.4.4. Soils and erosion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173
3.5. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193
Brigitte VAN VLIET-LANOË, René MAURY and Hervé GUILLOU
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199
List of Authors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215
Summary of Volume 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221
List of Abbreviations
σ , σ and σ Maximum, intermediate and minimum principal stresses of the
1 2 3
stress tensor
σ Maximum horizontal stress
Hmax
A
AMO Atlantic multidecadal oscillation
B
BTVP British Tertiary Volcanic Province
C
CGFZ Charlie–Gibbs Fracture Zone
CGPS Communicative Global Positioning System
D
DL Dalvik Line
DMM Depleted MORB mantle
DO Dansgaard–Oeschger event
Iceland Within the Northern Atlantic 2,
coordinated by Brigitte VAN VLIET-LANOË. © ISTE Ltd 2021.
x Iceland Within the Northern Atlantic 2
DSOW Denmark Strait overflow water
DTM Digital terrain model
E
E-MORB Enriched mid-ocean ridge basalts
EM Enriched mantle
EUR Europe
EVZ East Volcanic Zone
F
FLF Flat-lying flows
G
GEBCO General Bathymetric Chart of the Oceans
GIA Glacio-isostatic adjustment
GIFR Greenland–Iceland–Faroe Ridge
GIR Greenland–Iceland Ridge
GL Grimsey Line
GPS Global Positioning System
H
HFF Húsavík-Flatey Fault
HIMU High Mu mantle (Mu = U/Pb)
List of Abbreviations xi
I
ICPMS Inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry
IFR Iceland–Faroe Ridge
IGS International GPS Service
IMO Icelandic Meteorological Office (Veðurstofa Íslands)
InSAR Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar
IRD Ice-rafted detritus
ISOW Iceland–Scotland Overflow Water
ÍSNET GPS Network surveys of the National Land Survey of Iceland
(Landmælingar Íslands)
J
JMFZ Jan Mayen Fracture Zone
K
KR Kolbeinsey Ridge
L
LBA Labrador–Baffin axis
LGM Last Glacial Maximum (extension)
LIP Large igneous provinces
M
M or M Moment magnitude
W
MAR Mid-Atlantic Ridge
