GRUNNVATNSMARFLÆR Á ÍSLANDI

Two new species of subterranean amphipods (Crustacea) have recently been discovered in Iceland. One of the species belongs to a new family of amphipods. These findings support a hypothesis that there were subglacial refugia in Iceland during the Quaternary period. Iceland was covered by glaciers between about 2.6 M years B.P. to about ten thousand years B.P. It is an isolated island on top of the mid-Atlantic Ridge in the N-Atlantic Ocean, far from the North American and European continents. The presence of subterranean amphipods, belonging to an old group with its present distribution mainly in North America and the Eurasian continent, indicates past contact of subterranean freshwaters of Iceland and the North Atlantic continent. The amphipods currently found in Iceland may have been present in Greenland 40 M years ago, when the pre-cursor of Iceland drifted together with the hot spot (Iceland plume) from Greenland. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]