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EMIL HADAC 



The influence of such a land connection upon the climate and vegetation 

 must have been enormous, especially because in the Neogene the Arctic Sea 

 was cut off" from its broad connection with the warm southern part of the 

 Ocean; in the Paleogene this connection was realized through Siberia (cf. 

 Strachov, 1948). If there was any warm current hke the Gulf Stream, it must 



Fig. 1. The submarine relief of the Arctic basin and the northern Atlantic. 



have stopped on a line from southern Greenland over Iceland to Scotland. 

 Most of its heat was given off" on this coast and a mild Atlantic climate must 

 have resulted from this change. But how was it north of this land connection? 

 When no warm waters could enter the Arctic Basin, a real High Arctic 

 climate could be felt already in the central parts of the present Arctic. In the 

 contact between the cold Arctic air and the mild, wet Atlantic winds, there 

 was probably heavy precipitation and large glaciers could be formed in the 

 contact zone, whereas in the Arctic itself a continental climate could have 

 favored continental refugia. 



This hypothesis is of course pure fantasy based on a few sohd facts only; 

 the paleogeographers and the paleoclimatologists will have the last words on 

 these problems. But if we accept such suppositions as a working hypothesis we 

 can arrange our biological data concerning the Arctic and Atlantic biota in 

 a relatively satisfactory and logical way. 



If the Arctic climate already existed in the Arctic in the Neogene during 



