Geology of East Greenland

Presented byJames Creswell
Founder, Geo World Travel
Over 80% of Greenland is covered by ice and, in places, this is up to 3.4km thick, so it might not immediately spring to mind as a place to go to observe rocks. However, it is a huge country and has an ice-free area of 410,000 sq km, which is generally sparsely vegetated, leaving the rocks beautifully exposed and the geology incredibly easy to see.
The area of East Greenland around Scoresby Sund, Kong Oscar and Kejser Franz Joseph Fjords is the largest ice-free area in Greenland. It has incredible geodiversity, with basement rocks as old as three billion years, an almost complete sedimentary record of the last 1.6 byrs and huge volumes of flood basalts from the splitting of the Atlantic.
This talk will take you on a virtual tour of the geological diversity of this fascinating and spectacular part of the world.

[@angelmordant7868]

really nice and accessible talk ! thank you James !!!

[@whitby910]

Excellent, thank you.

[@ScienceWars]

Superb presentation. Diolch yn fawr iawn, James!

[@billpelzmann1030]

Thanks for your superb presentation, James. I visited East Greenland a few years ago. One of the best trips ever! I booked with a photography workshop, and had no idea of the varied geology I would see. My assumption was that I would be exclusively cruising in fjords carved through basement rock. Getting surprised by the geology actually made the trip extra special, but as a geologist, I am ashamed of my lack of pre-trip research.

[@aBRUSHforCONFUCIUS]

Seems like a very nice guy. Amazing geology.

[@Queenfloofles]

Very interesting.

[@mentordepret7951]

Absolutely a very interesting presentation, I would be interested to see!

[@buggsmcgee9270]

Cool

[@dianespears6057]

Wonderfully interesting. Thank you.

[@Linandemma]

Awesome beard, love it. Looking forward to the next hour or so. I've liked it already as your talks are always great.
some time later: that was absolutely excellent. Your photos are incredible. Hard to get your head around lol. Nice to hear a fellow Brit. Much love and respect from N Devon 🇬🇧

[@keyboardheroism]

How do you carbon date three billion year old rocks? Carbon-14 has a half life of 5700 year. Carbon-14 would be long gone in your three billion year old rock specimens.

[@davidpnewton]

Actually he is wrong about the "last ice age". We are still in that ice age.
Ice ages are periods when one or more polar ice sheets exist on the planet. The current ice age began 45.5 Ma with the first formation of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet. It intensified quite considerably 2.5 Ma at the start of the Pleistocene.
What he really means to say is that ice was more extensive during the last glacial.
He is also wrong about the number of ice sheets during that glacial. There were actually five ice sheets, not three. There were the Greenland Ice Sheet, the Iceland Ice Sheet, the Laurentide Ice Sheet, the Cordilleran Ice Sheet and the Fennoscandian Ice Sheet.