The Vulcano-Glacial Palagonite Formation of Iceland

• Published in: Geological Magazine
• Main Author: Peacock, Martin A.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Cambridge University Press (CUP) 1926
• Subjects: Iceland
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0016756800085137; https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S0016756800085137

The geological feature which strikes the traveller in Iceland perhaps most forcibly is the complete contrast afforded by the well-ordered, level, or gently dipping basalt sheets with almost negligible tuff intercalations which constitute the Pre-glacial Kainozoic Plateau and the Late-glacial and Recent volcanic formations, and the enormous, chaotic, rarely-bedded accumulations of the Palagonite Formation in which lava flows are subordinate in amount; and he is at once presented with the question: Why did igneous action which produced lava sheets in Pre-glacial times result in dominant tuffs and breccias in the period which followed, and then revert to the production of lavas in later times ? This question has not yet been fully answered.