Geology of East Greenland

For well-digestable further information, see my book Rocks and Ice

A) Rocks – a short introduction

A few words about rocks will make understanding everything else a bit easier. There are three different, basic groups of rocks (click to see the various sections)

• Sediments
• Magmatic (previously molten) rocks
• Metamorphic rocks (rocks altered by heat and/or pressure)

B) The Scoresbysund-area in East Greenland

The Scoresbysund area has a long and varied Earth history, which spans almost 3 billion years. Simplified, the geological framework can be subdivided into six parts, on top of which then comes the ice age. This corresponds to the units in the geological scetch map above (click on the links to get to the various sections).

1. The Precambrian shield (innermost Scoresbysund: innermost Vestfjord and innermost Nordvestfjord).
2. The Caledonian fold belt (inner Scoresbysund: Gåsefjord, Fønfjord, Rødefjord, Vestfjord, Øfjord, Nordvestfjord).
3. Old Red and New Red: Sediments deposited during the erosion of the Caledonian mountains (west side of Rødefjord, East side of Stauning Alper).
4. The Jameson Land basin filling: Sediments which have been deposited during the uppermost Palaeozoic and the Mesozoic, mostly in shallow seas (Jameson Land, southeastern Milne Land)
5. Basalts of the Blosseville Küste south of the Scoresbysund
6. Werner Bjerge
7. The ice age

Each one of this zones represents a chapter of Earth history and provides characteristic scenery within the Scoresbysund fjord system.

Strongly deformed and metamorphosed rocks in the Øfjord, inner Scoresbysund.