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.