Iceland Within the Northern Atlantic, Volume 2 Interactions between Volcanoes and Glaciers

About this book

The volcanic island of Iceland is a unique geological place due both to its position in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean and its repeated glaciations. It has been an accurate recorder of geodynamic and regional climatic evolutions for at least the last 15 million years.

Iceland Within the Northern Atlantic, Volume 2: Interactions between Volcanoes and Glaciers studies the Quaternary magmatism associated with the deep Iceland hotspot and, in particular, its distinctive geochemical and volcanological characteristics. It also analyzes Arctic glaciation as it relates to the opening of the North Atlantic and the appearance of today's ocean currents. The book also investigates the Quaternary glaciation as it affected Iceland in its oceanic context, particularly on the basis of radiometric dating, looking at the formation of the Greenland and Scandinavian ice sheets and data from marine sediment. Finally, it explores the specific environmental features of the island, from the end of the last ice age to global warming today.

This book brings together the internal and external geodynamics of our planet to understand how Iceland functions and its role as a recorder of the paleoclimatic evolution of the Northern Hemisphere.

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
Chapter 2. Volcanism and Glaciations: Forcings and Chronometers   57 / Hervé Guillou, René Maury and Brigitte van Vliet-Lanoë
Chapter 3. Cenozoic Evolution of Iceland and the Cryosphere   103 / Brigitte van Vliet-Lanoë and Hervé Guillou
Conclusion   193 / Brigitte van Vliet-Lanoë, René Maury and Hervé Guillou
References   199
List of Authors   213
Index   215
Summary of Volume 1   221

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Biography

Brigitte van Vliet-Lanoë is Emeritus Research Director at CNRS and is part of the Ocean Geosciences Laboratory at the University of Western Brittany, France. A surface geologist, she is a specialist in stratigraphy and the sedimentary formations of cold continental environments and their deformation by paleoseismicity.