LATE LAND CONNECTIONS IN THE NORTH ATLANTIC AREA 



79 



Iceland and Greenland, claim decidedly a continuous land connection with 

 Europe. 



This is, it should be observed, not the continuous Eur-Anierican land- 

 bridge postulated by Scharff( 1907, 1909, 1911), and others. As here proposed, 

 it includes Greenland but does not extend beyond Davis Strait. 



The bottom configuration of the North Atlantic Ocean seems rather 

 favorable for the appearance of a land-bridge (Fig. 4). A positive displacement 



200 



Fig. 4. The bottom configuration of the North Atlantic. (From Lindroth, 1957.) 



of the shore-line amounting to less than 600 m would connect the Faeroes, 

 Iceland, and Greenland with Europe along the present Wyville-Thompson 

 ridge ("the Greenland-Scotland ridge"). Now, 600 m would seem like a modest 

 depth in comparison with ordinary deep-sea values exceeding 2000 m even 

 within short distance and on both sides of the Wyville-Thompson ridge. 

 But it is nevertheless considerably more than the changes in sea level regarded 

 as acceptable in late geological times, at least during the Pleistocene. 



The eustatic depression of the sea level, due to storage of the precipitation 

 in form of ice on the continents, has been calculated as hardly exceeding 

 100 m during each of the last two (and possibly earlier) Pleistocene glacia- 

 tions. There is no reason to believe that similar events have occurred in Terti- 

 ary time. Pliocene, or earlier, glaciations (if a reality; cf. Schwarzbach and 

 Pflug, 1957, p. 295) were under all circumstances less extensive. 



No isostatic movements of the Earth-crust, caused by ice depression and 

 simultaneous upheaval of marginal areas, can have exerted any noticeable 

 effect on the now submerged parts of the Wyville-Thompson ridge. 



There is also a special biological reason for denying the importance of 



