Icelandia
Type | Book section | ||||||||
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Date | 2022-01 | ||||||||
Language | English | ||||||||
Author(s) | Foulger Gillian R.1, Gernigon Laurent2, Geoffroy Laurent3 | ||||||||
Affiliation(s) | 1 : Department of Earth Sciences, Durham University, Science Laboratories, South Road, DH1 3LE, UK 2 : Norges Geologiske Undersøkelse (NGU)/Geological Survey of Norway, Leiv Erikssons vei 39, N-7491 Trondheim, Norway 3 : Laboratory Geosciences Ocean, UMR 6538 CNRS, IUEM, Université de Bretagne Occidentale, Place Copernic, 29280 Plouzané, France |
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Book | In the Footsteps of Warren B. Hamilton: New Ideas in Earth Science, Gillian R. Foulger, Lawrence C. Hamilton, Donna M. Jurdy, Carol A. Stein, Keith A. Howard, Seth Stein. The Geological Society of America Special Paper 553. 12p. | ||||||||
DOI | 10.1130/2021.2553(04) | ||||||||
Abstract | We propose a new, sunken continent beneath the North Atlantic Ocean that we name Icelandia. It may comprise blocks of full-thickness continental lithosphere or extended, magma-inflated continental layers that form hybrid continental-oceanic lithosphere. It underlies the Greenland-Iceland-Faroe Ridge and the Jan Mayen microplate complex, covering an area of ~600,000 km2. It is contiguous with the Faroe Plateau and known parts of the submarine continental rifted margin offshore Britain. If these are included in a “Greater Icelandia,” the entire area is ~1,000,000 km2 in size. The existence of Icelandia needs to be tested. Candidate approaches include magnetotelluric surveying in Iceland; ultralong, full-crust-penetrating reflection profiling along the length of the Greenland-Iceland-Faroe Ridge; dating zircons collected in Iceland; deep drilling; and reappraisal of the geology of Iceland. Some of these methods could be applied to other candidate sunken continents that are common in the oceans. |
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