The course of events of the volcanic activity in Surtsey and the adjacent area can be divided into seven main phases:

Submarine phase I

This phase probably started about 6 November 1963, in a fissure, 130 m deep, running N 35° E to S 35° W, in lat 63° 18′ 22″ N, long 20° 36′ 5″ W, 3 nautical miles west-south-west of Geirfuglasker, the southernmost of the Vestmannaeyjar (Fig. 1) The seismograph at Kirkjubæjarklaustur registered weak earthquakes in this area from 6 to 8 November. During the following week submarine action built up a narrow ridge, presumably mainly consisting of pillow lava, near the bottom of the sea floor, and an increasing amount of hyaloclastites as the ridge came nearer the surface.

Argument about whether or not continental drift has occurred has been continuous and inconclusive since drift was first advocated fifty years ago by scientists from a number of different disciplines. Recently, evidence has accumulated to establish beyond reasonable doubt that this drift has indeed occurred. In this paper I discuss some features of the drift, particularly those concerning the northern Atlantic Ocean. The investigations of geologists should now be turned from the question of whether drift has occurred, to the manner in which it has occurred.

Plans for a long-term study of Polar Bears (Ursus maritimus) in Spitsbergen were initiated in Norway in 1964. The programme is a joint operation between the University of Oslo and Norsk Polarinstitutt. It is divided in two-main projects:

1. Ecological investigations under T. Larsen, Institutt for Marin Biologi Avd A [Institute of Marine Biology AJ], University of Oslo.

2. Physiological investigations under N. A. Øritsland, Zoofysiologisk Institutt [Zoophysiological Institute], University of Oslo.

A third project, ecological and ornithological studies is under M. Norderhaug, Zoologisk Laboratorium [Zoological Laboratory], University of Oslo.

The preliminary plan for the biological programme in Spitsbergen was presented at the First International Scientific Meeting on the Polar Bear in Fairbanks, Alaska, in 1965.

The Distant Early Warning System (DEWLine) is a network of radar and communications stations stretching for some 3600 miles along the 69th parallel from Cape Lisburne, Alaska, to Cape Dyer, Baffin Island, and continuing across Davis Strait and the Greenland ice sheet to the east coast of Greenland. Thence it maintains communication with the North Atlantic Radio System from Keflavfk, Iceland, to Fylingdales Moor, England. The DEWDrop system, a tropospheric scatter communications system links Cape Dyer with the Inter-Continental Ballistic Missile Station at Thule, Greenland and another connects Thule with the DEWLine station FOX, on Foxe Basin. DEWLine stations are supervised and controlled by the US Air Force, by agreement with the Canadian and Danish Governments.

The Second Conference of the Arctic Co-operatives was held at Poyungnituk, 19-28 April 1966. The first conference, held three years earlier at Frobisher Bay, had asked the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, which is sponsoring the co-operative development programme in the Canadian north, for assistance in establishing a strong central co-operative marketing agency to develop new markets for the increasing volume of crafts, and to exercise quality control. The Department agreed to discuss this proposal with the Co-operative Union of Canada and the Conseil Canadien de la Cooperation and to prepare a paper outlining its findings in detail. The delegates were to recommend to their co-operatives that they should consider the idea of a central marketing agency.