Perhaps Iceland is not just a volcanic island but the tip of a sunken continent. This is the conclusion of geophysicist Gillian R. Foulger and her colleagues at Durham University in England in a recent book.
The theory could explain why the earth’s crust under Iceland is thicker than it should be if the land had formed in volcanic eruptions.
Iceland is on the border of two crustal plates that are moving away from each other, and therefore hot lava flows up from the depths. New small islands are supposed to emerge from the sea level off the coast, and therefore the theory that the land was all created due to volcanic eruptions seems to be right.
However, one important clue points in another direction – that Iceland is actually a remnant of an old continent.
The crustal plates under the world’s oceans are mostly 6-7 km thick, but under the continents the crust is thicker, 35-70 km. The earth’s crust under Iceland is about 40 km thick and therefore resembles the crust under continents more than the ocean floor.
Geologists have explained this by the fact that Iceland is in a so-called hot spot, where intense volcanic activity creates a new earth’s crust very quickly.
Foulger doesn’t think this explanation holds up, but says the Earth’s crust is simply too thick to be explained that way.
Islandia covered over 600,000 square kilometers, or six times the size of Iceland
She believes that Iceland is the top part of a continent that covered over 600,000 square kilometers in the North Atlantic and calls this sunken land Iceland.
Foulger believes that Iceland was part of the giant Pangea, where all dry land was gathered until about 175 million years ago.
When Europe and America began to drift apart, Iceland sank into the sea and now only Iceland stands out.
The British scientists now want to study the earth’s crust under Iceland in search of minerals that could prove if Icelandia actually existed.
If this continental theory turns out to be correct, it would of course be interesting from a geological point of view, but at the same time it would increase the probability of oil and gas wells underwater around the country.
