Leó Kristjánsson
Annotated reference list on Iceland spar and polarized light

 

My research on the Iceland spar quarry at Helgustadir, E-Iceland, and its influence on the development of the natural sciences (mostly in the 19th century) has been ongoing part-time since 1995. In August 2001 I published a report in Icelandic on the matter through the Science Institute, University of Iceland. The appended list of references is a translation of that in a new and greatly expanded edition of the report which is being prepared in August 2007. Papers based on material from the report have been published in the Icelandic journals Jökull (July 2001), Glettingur (no. 2, 2002) and Verpill (2007), as well as in Journal of Geoscience Education (Sept. 2002) and Matrix (Dec. 2003) in the U.S. The list represents only a small fraction of the papers and books which I have consulted and obtained copies of; these in turn are only a very small fraction of all the relevant publications.

At the end of the list there are some sentences taken from various sources, regarding a shortage of Iceland spar which seems to have prevailed from the early 1880´s. There are also some paragraphs describing connections of various Nobel prize winners to research involving Iceland spar and Nicol prisms.

                                                                                   
 
Leó Kristjánsson (leo@raunvis.hi.is)