Sip back as we discover Greenland or Kalaallit Nunaat the adventurers travel destination to experience the Arctic Big 5. We explore the geodiversity and fossil record of this autonomous territory under the sovereignty of the Kingdom of Denmark dating back to Erik the Red and the Inuit Indigenous Peoples of the Kalaallit. Greenland has been shaped over billions of years by tectonic movements, mountain building events and glaciation whose folds, faults and intrusions are rich in minerals, precious metals and rare earth elements but also where the marginal mountain basins, especially the Jameson Land Basin in East Greenland, have successions of sediment formations that hold fossils of some of the oldest and well preserved trilobites, Timorebestia swimming worms, tetrapod's, pterosaur and a dinosaur called Issi saaneq. Finally, we explore the impact of climate change on both the melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet and its territorial waters and consider the undeniable truth that a renewed external interest for economic and political gain by exploiting Greenland's natural resources risks irreversibly disrupting this highly sensitive ecosystem.
Greenland
Greenland or Kalaallit Nunaat is an autonomous self-governing territory within the Kingdom of Denmark and also Earth’s largest island covering more than 2 million Km². Today, 80% of Greenland's landmass remains covered by the Greenland Ice Sheet the second-largest body of ice after Antarctica.
Note: The size of Greenland shown below is highly exaggerated on the map because of the projection on the map distorts the shape of countries to make them appear much larger relative to their position further away from the equator.
With a surface area comparable in size the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia or Mexico the population is sparse at over 55,000 people living on 20% of the country not covered by ice including the capital city of Nuuk.
Greenlandic People
Nearly 90% of the population are Inuit the Indigenous Peoples of Greenland who refer to themselves as Kalaallit. There are three regional groups known as the Kalaallit of West Greenland, Tunumiit of East Greenland and the Artic Highlanders of the Inughuit. Greenland’s official language is Kalaallisut followed by Danish and English.
In 2009 the Act on Greenland Self-Government was granted to Greenland by Denmark. The act gives Greenland the authority to make decisions in certain areas while still remaining part of the Kingdom of Denmark. The future of Greenland will very much be decided upon by Greenland’s government the Naalakkersuisutright as they have the right to self-determination under international law.
Visit Greenland
Greenland is becoming increasingly more visible as a sustainable destination for adventure tourists and the reasons to go are undeniable if you want to discover the “Big Artic Five”.
Greenland offers the outdoor adventurer unique, authentic and immersive all year-round experiences that will for now become tomorrow’s unforgettable memories of an unspoilt wilderness. Whether that is seeking out the snow & ice on the Ilulissat Icefjord a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
You could decide upon immersing yourself and connecting with the Greenlandic people and their culture; experience the Aurora Borealis in Winter, bath in the Midnight Sun in Summer or stargaze and observe celestial events in dark night skies free from light pollution; whale watch up to 16 species or sit back in the warmth of traditional Inuit clothing and witness first hand the bond between musher and pack of husky type Kalaallit Qimmiat or Greenlander's on a dog sled journey.
The options for travelling to Greenland are either by commercial airline or as a stopover on a private expedition charter or cruise with MSC Cruises, Celebrity Cruises, Royal Caribbean and HX Hurtigruten Expeditions.
If travelling from mainland Europe by plane Air Greenland operates out of Copenhagen with year-round flights to Nuuk and to Narsarsuaq two times a week in the summer season between June - August. If travelling from the US, Canada and the UK both Air Greenland, Icelandair and Norland Air provide direct routes.
Given that a new international airport has opened in Nuuk it’s advisable to always check flight schedules and travel packages when planning your trip to Greenland because of potential changes and new opportunities.
Why not start planning your trip to Visit Greenland?
Greenland's Geodiversity
Its unsurprising to learn that Greenland’s geological history spans billions of years and volcanic activity, tectonic movements and glaciation have all played a role in shaping the island’s landscape.
Greenland has some of oldest rock on Earth dating to the Archean Eon from 4 – 2.5 billion years ago. These rocks make up the Greenland Shield an ancient aggregated clan of cratons that through the process of continental drift have gradually moved from the southern hemisphere to its present-day polar position in the northern hemisphere.
During the Proterozoic Eon between 2.5 billion - 541 million years ago Greenland experienced a series of complex and extensive intrusions, metamorphism, deformation and sedimentation from the collision and break-up of continental tectonic blocks including Rodinia and Pangaea.
Among these were mountain building events of the Nagssugtoqidian along the east coast of Greenland, the Ketilidian that affected southern part of Greenland, the Rinkian Orogen in central West Greenland and the Torngat Orogeny that affected the north eastern part of Quebec and north western Labrador and influenced the deformation of north east Greenland.
It's especially important to note is that from the Ketilidian orogeny Greenland also started the process of Uranium enrichment with the most significant uranium-rich deposits now found in Kvanefjeld and Kujalleq in South Greenland as well as in the Thule region of Northern Greenland.
Around 1.35 billion years ago a mantle plume arrived under Greenland. This buoyant upwelling of hot mantle from the asthenosphere intruded the rifted and faulted margins of the basement rock and mountains with molten lava forming a complex series of dyke swarms.
Among these was the Gardar Alkaline Igneous Province in Southern Greenland an area that holds among the world's largest resources for Rare Earth Elements. Similar areas also exists in West Greenland in the Sisimiut, Sarfartoq and Kangerlussuaq region and south of the Sukkertoppen Icecap where reserves of gold mineralisation and Kimberlite pipes that contain diamonds are found.
Greenland has a unique wealth of minerals with more than 500 registered and some are very local and recognise the cultural history of the Island with mineral named Vikingite and Eskimoite found in Ivigtut and Leifite discovered in Narsarsuk.
The Paleozoic Era between 541 – 252 million years ago Greenland was impacted by continental tectonic collision that led to the closure of the Iapetus Ocean and the start of the Caledonian Orogeny a significant mountain-building event in the East of Greenland whose folding, faulting and movement continued through the Ordovician, Silurian and Devonian periods. During the Mesozoic Era Greenland experienced the breakup of the supercontinent Pangaea. During the Triassic Period Greenland's climate was semi-arid.
By the Jurassic Period the formation of the North Atlantic Large Igneous Province led to the formation of deeper marine basins with thick sequences of marine shales and sandstones deposited along the coast of East of Greenland. The presence of Jurassic coal deposits in East Greenland also suggests the presence of swampy environments with extensive vegetation.
During the Cretaceous Period major tectonic shifts continued as the Atlantic Ocean continued to widen and open up. The end of the Cretaceous Period marked the transition from a warm greenhouse climate to the cooling climate that would ultimately lead to the Ice Age.
The Paleogene and first period of the Cenozoic Era between 66 – 23 million years ago was still dominated by the widening of the North Atlantic and the intense volcanic activity associated with the North Atlantic Igneous Province.
By the start of the Neogene the second period of the Cenozoic Era between 23 - 2.6 million years ago global temperatures had dropped to a point that the first glaciers began form during the Miocene and intensified to form ice sheets across Greenland.
During the Quaternary Greenland was almost entirely covered by the Greenland Ice Sheet. The ice would advance and retreat multiple times due glacial, interglacial periods as well as climate oscillations known as Dansgaard - Oeschger (D-O) cycles meaning that the edges as well as parts of the centre of the Greenland melted and replaced by a tundra ecosystem with insects and plant life.
Greenland's Fossils
Greenland contains several fossiliferous rock formations that preserve evidence about the evolution of life, climate change and how Greenland’s environment has transformed over millions of years. As Greenland’s ice continues to melt undoubtedly new fossil discoveries will be made and add to our knowledge about this ancient ecosystem.
The Isua Greenstone Belt
We start chronologically exploring fossils of the Isua Greenstone Belt in the South West of Greenland near Nuuk. Dated from between 3.7 – 3.8 billion years during the Eoarchean Era the first era of the Archean Eon. This is among the oldest known sequence of well-preserved sedimentary and volcanic rocks on Earth.
For many years these rocks have been commonly accepted as having the oldest known fossils of Stromatolites a layered mound of cyanobacteria that provides evidence of microbial life in Earth's early oceans.
In recent years it has been also been debated that these Stromatolites are in fact abiogenic and may have not produced by living organisms but are features created by a complex geological setting.
The Beun Formation & Sirius Passet Lagerstätte
The Beun Formation holds the fossil assemblage of the Sirius Passet Lagerstätte first discovered in 1984 by the Geological Survey of Greenland in Northern Greenland. Dated to between 515 – 518 million years ago during the Atdabanian Stage the earliest part of the Cambrian Period or Cambrian Stage 3.
The fossils of the Sirius Passet Lagerstätte are exposed near Peary Land (82° 47.59' N, 42° 13.54' W) part of the Franklinian Basin made of a sedimentary succession of mudstones, siltstones and sandstones several hundred meters thick.
The Sirius Passet Lagerstätte is among the first rocks to expose a group of arthropods known as trilobites and Timorebestia meaning “terror beasts” a large swimming worm.
This was the beginning of the Cambrian Explosion. This was a period of rapid evolution, diversity and radiation of marine life. This Cambrian fossil deposit is as significant as the Chengjiang fauna of southern China and the Burgess Shale in Canada.
The Sirius Passet Lagerstätte shows evidence of the emergence of new body plans and an ecosystem of predators like Kerygmachela kierkegaardi as well as, infaunal (sediment living), benthic (living near/on sea bed) the and pelagic (open water living) organisms of Radiodonta, euarthropods, lobopods, Hyolitha, halkieriids, worms, sponges and notably the species of olenelline trilobites called Mesolenellus, Limniphacos and the nevadiid trilobite of Buenellus higginsi.
The Britta Dal Formation
The Britta Dal Formation is part of a succession of Old Red Sandstone from the Celsius Bjerg Group on the Gauss Peninsula of East Greenland. Dated to the Famennian Age of the Late Devonian Epoch between 372 – 358 million years ago and is believed to have been an ephemeral stream system and floodplain.
The disarticulated fossil finds have been of scales and spines of the extinct tetrapod's of Acanthostega, Brittagnathus minutus, Ymeria denticulata, Ichthyostega and the skull of the lungfish known as Jarvikia. These fossils have contributed towards understanding that the transition from living in an aquatic environment to becoming terrestrial happened earlier and before the end of the Devonian Period.
The Kap Stewart Group
The Kap Stewart Group is exposed on the Westside of Carlsberg Fjord in East Greenland is a succession of rock primarily known for its trace fossils that dates from Rhaetian Age of the Triassic Period through to the Sinemurian Age of the Jurassic Period between 208 – 193 million years ago.
The Kap Stewart Group is known to hold an assemblage of vertebrate coprolites or fossilised poo from a variety of different animals that helps to understand diet and behaviour. Additionally, fossils of plants have been discovered such as the ferns of Lepidopteris, Thaumatopteris as well as pteridosperms, conifers, ginkgophytes, cycadophytes and several species of microflora.
These sedimentary rocks are composed of river, deltaic and lake sediments along with the presence of coal layers suggests that this region was once a warm swampy environment.
Recently the discovery of single shark tooth (Rhomphaiodon minor) and a plesiosaur fossil in a succession known as the Rhætelv Formation that there was an incursion by the sea into the Jameson Land Basin. This sea level highstand or when the sea level was higher than the continental shelf edge is dated to the Hettangian Age between 201.3 – 199.5 million years ago.
The Wordie Creek Group
Another highly fossiliferous area on Jameson Land is the Wordie Creek Formation found in the Northeast Greenland National Park on the north east coast of Hold with Hope.
The Wordie Creek Group is subdivided into several formations and members reflecting changes in depositional environments and fossil content dating from Upper Permian to the Late Triassic and provides evidence of environmental shifts during the transition of the world’s largest mass extinction event.
This was a boreal shore environment with a subarctic climate with forests, woodlands, lakes, rivers, wetlands and alpine areas. The fossil record of the Wordie Creek Formation captures a former river and delta ecosystem well-connected to an open marine shelf basin.
The Wordie Creek Formation has the first occurrence of the common Early Triassic conodonts including Hindeodus parvus and a series of ammonite zones of Hypophiceras triviale, HHypophiceras martini, Wordieoceras decipiens as well as Dienerian brachiopods and the bivalve molluscs of Anodontophora breviformis and Anodontophora fassaensis.
The Fleming Fjord Formation
The Fleming Fjord Formation again within the Jameson Land Basin dates to the Late Triassic period between the late Norian–early Rhaetian ages roughly 215 - 220 million years ago.
Located on the North Eastern coast of Jameson Land this was once a lake-mudflat environment whose conglomerate of red coloured siltstones and sandstones includes fossils of aetosaurs (“eagle lizards”), Testudinata or turtles, amphibians, reptiles including stagonolepids, Temnospondyls, fish, Phytosaurs and some of the earliest and most northernmost Late Triassic dinosaurs and pterosaurs.
In the Fleming Fjord Formation a 214-million-year old two-legged long-necked herbivorous sauropodomorph dinosaur named Issi saaneq meaning "cold bone" in the Inuit language was discovered. Issi is accompanied by the much smaller Arcticodactylus a new species of Eudimorphodon pterosaur with an 24cm wingspan (probably a juvenile).
Other trace fossils of various fossilised ichnites or footprints and trackways indicate the presence of other Archosaurs as well as three-toed theropod dinosaurs and other reptiles were common in the area.
Mesters Vig Formation
Also located in East Greenland towards the north of Scoresby Land is the Mesters Vig Formation dating to the Late Carboniferous and Early Permian periods.
This formation tells a story of alluvial and fluvial sediments holding plant and fish fossils as well as a tetrapod trackway known as Limnopus an ichnogenus of ancient tetrapod footprint probably of a large amphibious eryopoid temnospondyl. The trackway is now housed at the Natural History Museum of Denmark.
Climate Change
It is undeniable that climate change and the combination of warmer air temperatures and warmer ocean waters means that the Greenland Ice Sheet is losing considerable mass from the release of meltwater and iceberg calving each year.
According to data from NASA’s Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) and GRACE Follow-On (GRACE-FO) satellites that tracks the Earth’s water movement has calculated that Greenland is on average losing over 271 billion metric tons per year adding to sea level rise. (As shown below)
The impact of climate change upon both the melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet as well as the Artic Ice means that both terrestrial mining and offshore exploration activities will become less arduous and less expensive as the Summer season becomes longer and more land becomes exposed or accessible to explore.
The mineral richness of Greenland's vast reserves of minerals and rare earth elements creates an economic, political and environmental imperative where financial gain, political power will need to be balanced against avoidable and irreversible environmental damage from ecosystem disruption, water contamination, radioactive water contamination on a colossal scale that mineral extraction requires.
As the edges of the Greenland Ice Sheet and Arctic Ice melt this may mean previously inaccessible shipping routes such as the Northwest Passage, the Northern Sea Route and Transpolar Route open up offering cheaper and a much shorter travel distance between continents than taking the established shipping routes through the Panama Canal and Suez Canal.
It is not undeniable that opening up these sea routes for economic and political gain will disrupt a fragile ecosystem from pollution, introduce invasive marine species with yet unknown consequences and finally, political conflict may arise between Artic nations as they battle out an amendment or push forwards alternative proposals to reform the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (Article 234).
This law considers countries whose coastlines are near Arctic shipping routes and gives them the ability to regulate the route's maritime traffic so long as the area remains ice-covered for the majority of the year. Climate change may mean that these areas are no longer covered in ice for a majority of the year!
Greenland's Heritage
The settlement of Greenland dates back to over a thousand years and the arrival of the first Dorset people an Eskimo culture whose origins are unclear but occupied Greenland and areas of the Canadian Arctic between 500 BC - 1,000 AD before they disappeared.
In A.D. 985 Norsemen led by explorer Erik Thorvaldsson known as "Erik the Red" from Iceland settled in Greenland. During this time the Thule Culture and ancestors to the Indigenous Inuit peoples had also migrated eastwards from Northern Alaska along the Arctic shores and established themselves in Labrador and Greenland. Greenland would later fall under the governance of the Kalmar Union between Denmark and Norway in 1397 ruled under a single monarchy.
Once the Vikings had abandoned Greenland in the 15th century due to the harsh impact on living and surviving in Greenland during the Little Ice Age. The Island would remain effectively isolated for nearly 200 years before the arrival in 1721 of Hans Poulsen Egede (1686-1758) who would be later known as the "the apostle of Greenland".
Under a Royal Decree issued by King Frederik IV of Denmark and Norway the Lutheran missionary travelled to Greenland after learning the stories of the Vikings. His role was to spread Christianity and contribute towards the re-colonisation Greenland including the founding of the Islands capital Nuuk in 1728.
The legacy left by Hans Egede still reverberates today with issues surrounding how the introduction of Christianity was undertaken and the expense paid in oppressing original Inuit thinking and values. His statue stands by the red wooden "Church of Our Saviour" on a hill facing the site of his first mission in Nuuk. Following the arrival of the Lutheran Church other missionaries followed unsuccessfully including the Moravian Church in 1733 from Germany who stayed until 1900 before being absorbed by the Lutheran Church due to financial worries.
The Napoleonic Wars between 1803 – 1815 was a pivotal moment in the future sovereignty of Greenland. The conflict in Europe led by Napoleon Bonaparte's French Empire who were hell-bent of establishing French supremacy across the continent meant that a number of coalitions were formed between European nations known as Napoleon's Continental System.
Two years before the start of the Napoleonic Wars in 1801 the British Navy commanded by Admiral Horatio Nelson attacked the Danish naval fleet in Copenhagen to disrupt the League of Armed Neutrality.
The League of Armed Neutrality was an alliance of European Navy’s, including Denmark, formed during the American Revolutionary War to resist the British navy searching neutral ships. Denmark joined this alliance to safeguard its shipping interests against British interference. It was this action that also recognised the threat the Danish Naval Fleet posed to British interests at the time.
Following the defeat of the French and Spanish naval fleets at the "Battle of Trafalgar" in October 1805 by the British Royal Navy there was a concern again that the rebuilt Danish fleet of naval ships would be seized by the French and deployed against Britain to destroy their ships and block trade routes into the North Sea and Baltics. In August 1807 Britain under the command of Admiral James Gambier attacked Copenhagen and defeated the Danish naval fleet for a second time in the “Bombardment of Copenhagen”.
Not only was this attack on Copenhagen a catalyst for the formal declaration of war by Emperor Alexander I of the Russian Empire on Britain and the start of the Anglo-Russian War but also it triggered the union of Denmark-Norway to join Napoleon’s Continental System.
Denmark was now a weakened ally to the French without a naval fleet but still decided upon resuming a long history of hostilities with Sweden for their alliance with Britain and their war against Russia.
This year long skirmish between Denmark and Sweden was a costly distraction for all countries involved and ended with a peace agreement known as Treaty of Jönköping where no territorial gains between Denmark–Norway and Sweden were made and the state of affairs resumed to a pre-war status meaning they could each focus on their larger Napoleonic conflicts.
Before the decisive ending of the Napoleonic War in June 1815 at the "Battle of Waterloo" by a coalition of German, Belgian, Dutch and British soldiers led by the Duke of Wellington and Marshal Blücher. A peace treaty called the Treaty of Kiel between Denmark and Sweden was reached in January 1814 because the protracted Napoleonic War had defeated Denmark.
Importantly for Greenland the Treaty of Kiel meant the dissolution of the 434-year union between Denmark and Norway. Denmark was forced to give up Norway to Sweden as a form of reparation for Sweden's loss of Finland to Russia. However, Norway resisted this and subsequently forcibly declared independence. Denmark would importantly however keep control the North Atlantic territories including Iceland, Greenland, and the Faroe Islands.
In 1916 the Danish Minister Constantin Brun and U.S. Secretary of State Robert Lansing approved the Antilles Treaty. This treaty was ratified by President Woodrow Wilson that saw the transfer of the Danish West Indies to the USA and become the U.S. Virgin Islands. This exchange was based upon the U.S. recognising Danish sovereignty over Greenland and Presidentially affirming that Greenland “will for ever be Danish”.
In recent times only Norway’s attempted to claim sovereignty of East Greenland in 1925 has been challenged and only to acquiesce in 1933 by legal judgement from the Permanent Court of International Justice.
In May 1940 only a matter of weeks before Denmark surrendered and was subsequently occupied by the invading Wehrmacht or German Nazi Army in "Operation Weserübung". Denmark had agreed with the USA a plan for the Defence of Greenland whilst Greenland remained cut off from Denmark during their occupation during the war.
This agreement would lead controversially to the signing of Article X or the Greenland Treaty by Danish Ambassador Henrik Kauffman. This provision allowed for the U.S. to maintain a military presence in Greenland for as long as it was deemed necessary. It was not until 1951 that the Greenland Defense Agreement was agreed and is still in effect allowing the U.S. to keep its military bases such as the Pituffik Space Base previously known as Thule Air Base in Greenland if deemed necessary by NATO.