Oolites of Pendulum Island in East Greenland. Ancient schists
occur on the east coast south of Angmagssalik, and basalts and
schists are found in Scoresby Fjord. It is possible that some of
these rocks are also of Huronian age, but it is doubtful whether the
rocks so designated by the geologists of the “Alert” and “Discovery”
expedition are really the rocks so known in Canada, or
are a continuous portion of the fundamental or oldest gneiss of the
north-west of Scotland and the western isles.
2. Silurian.—Upper Silurian, having a strong relation to the Wenlock group of Britain, but with an American facies, and Lower Silurian, with a succession much the same as in British North America, are found on the shores of Smith Sound, and Nathorst has discovered them in King Oscar Fjord, but not as yet so far south as the Danish possessions.
3. Devonian rocks are believed to occur in Igaliko and Tunnudiorbik Fjords, in S.W. Greenland, but as they are unfossiliferous sandstone, rapidly disintegrating, this cannot be known. It is, however, likely that this formation occurs in Greenland, for in Dana Bay, Captain Feilden found a species of Spirifera and Productus mesolobus or costatus, though it is possible that these fossils represent the “Ursa stage” (Heer) of the Lower Carboniferous. A few Devonian forms have also been recorded from the Parry Archipelago, and Nathorst has shown the existence of Old Red Sandstone facies of Devonian in Traill Island, Geographical Society Island, Ymer Island and Gauss Peninsula.
4. Carboniferous.—In erratic blocks of sandstone, found on the Disco shore of the Waigat have been detected a Sigillaria and a species of either Pecopteris or Gleichenia, perhaps of this age; and probably much of the extreme northern coast of Ellesmere Land, and therefore, in all likelihood, the opposite Greenland shore, contains a clearly developed Carboniferous Limestone fauna, identical with that so widely distributed over the North American continent, and referable also to British and Spitsbergen species. Of the Coal Measures above these, if they occur, we know nothing at present. Capt. Feilden notes as suggestive that, though the explorers have not met with this formation on the northern shores of Greenland, yet it was observed that a continuation of the direction of the known strike of the limestones of Feilden peninsula, carried over the polar area, passes through the neighbourhood of Spitsbergen, where the formation occurs, and contains certain species identical with those of the Grinnell Land rocks of this horizon. The facies of the fossils is, according to Mr Etheridge, North American and Canadian, though many of the species are British. The corals are few in number, but the Molluscoida (Polyzoa) are more numerous in species and individuals. No Secondary rocks have been discovered in the extreme northern parts of West Greenland, but they are present on the east and west coasts in more southerly latitudes than Smith Sound.
5. Jurassic.—These do not occur on the west coast, but on the east coast the German expedition discovered marls and sandstones on Kuhn Island, resembling those of the Russian Jurassic, characterized by the presence of the genus Aucella, Olcostephanus Payeri, O. striolaris, Belemnites Panderianus, B. volgensis, B. absolutus, and a Cyprina near to C. syssolae. On the south coast of the same island are coarse-grained, brownish micaceous and light-coloured calcareous sandstone and marls, containing fossils, which render it probable that they are of the same age as the coal-bearing Jurassic rocks of Brora (Scotland) and the Middle Dogger of Yorkshire. There is also coal on Kuhn Island.
The Danish expeditions of 1899–1900 have added considerably to our knowledge of the Jurassic rocks of East Greenland. Rhaetic-Lias plants have been described by Dr Hartz from Cape Stewart and Vardeklöft. Dr Madsen has recognized fossils that correspond with those from the Inferior oolite, Cornbrash and Callovian of England. Upper Kimmeridge and Portlandian beds also occur.
6. Cretaceous.—Beds of this age, consisting of sandstones and coal, are found on the northern coast of Disco Island and the southern side of the Noursoak Peninsula, the beds in the former locality, “the Kome strata” of Nordenskiöld, being the oldest. They reach 1000 ft. in thickness, occupying undulating hollows in the underlying gneiss, and dip towards the Noursoak Peninsula at 20°, when the overlying Atanakerdluk strata come in. Both these series contain numerous plant remains, evergreen oaks, magnolias, aralias, &c., and seams of lignite (coal), which is burnt; but in neither occur the marine beds of the United States. Still, the presence of dicotyledonous leaves, such as Magnolia alternans, in the Atanakerdluk strata, proves their close alliance with the Dakota series of the United States. The underlying Kome beds are not present in the American series. They are characterized by fine cycads (Zamites arcticus and Glossozamites Hoheneggeri), which also occur in the Urgonian strata of Wernsdorff.
7. Miocene.—This formation, one of the most widely spread in polar lands, though the most local in Greenland, is also the best known feature in its geology. It is limited to Disco Island, and perhaps to a small part of the Noursoak Peninsula, and the neighbouring country, and consists of numerous thin beds of sandstone, shale and coal—the sideritic shale containing immense quantities of leaves, stems, fruit, &c., as well as some insects, and the coal pieces of retinite. The study of these plant and insect remains shows that forests containing a vegetation very similar to that of California and the southern United States, in some instances even the species of trees being all but identical, flourished in 70° N. during geological periods comparatively recent. These beds, as well as the Cretaceous series, from which they are as yet only imperfectly distinguished, are associated with sheets of basalt, which penetrate them in great dikes, and in some places, owing to the wearing away of the softer sedimentary rocks, stand out in long walls running across the beds. These Miocene strata have not been found farther north on the Greenland shore than the region mentioned; but in Lady Franklin Bay, on the Grinnell Land side of Smith Sound, they again appear, so that the chances are they will be found on the opposite coast, though doubtless the great disintegration Greenland has undergone and is undergoing has destroyed many of the softer beds of fossiliferous rocks. On the east coast, more particularly in Hochstetter Foreland, the Miocene beds again appear, and we may add that there are traces of them even on the west coast, between Sonntag Bay and Foulke Fjord, at the entrance to Smith Sound. It thus appears that since early Tertiary times there has been a great change in the climate of Greenland.
Nathorst has suggested that the whole of Greenland is a “horst,” in the subordinate folds of which, as well as in the deeper “graben,” the younger rocks are preserved, often with a covering of Tertiary or later lava flows.[1]—J. A. H.]
Minerals.—Native iron was found by Nordenskiöld at Ovifak, on Disco Island, in 1870, and brought to Sweden (1871) as meteorites. The heaviest nodule weighed over 20 tons. Similar native iron has later been found by K. J. V. Steenstrup in several places on the west coast enclosed as smaller or larger nodules in the basalt. This iron has very often beautiful Widmannstätten figures like those of iron meteorites, but it is obviously of telluric origin.[2] In 1895 Peary found native iron at Cape York; since John Ross’s voyage in 1818 it has been known to exist there, and from it the Eskimo got iron for their weapons. In 1897 Peary brought the largest nodule to New York; it was estimated to weigh nearly 100 tons. This iron is considered by several of the first authorities on the subject to be of meteoric origin,[3] but no evidence hitherto given seems to prove decisively that it cannot be telluric. That the nodules found were lying on gneissic rock, with no basaltic rocks in the neighbourhood, does not prove that the iron may not originate from basalt, for the nodules may have been transported by the glaciers, like other erratic blocks, and will stand erosion much longer than the basalt, which may long ago have disappeared. This iron seems, however, in several respects to be unlike the celebrated large nodules of iron found by Nordenskiöld at Ovifak, but appears to resemble much more closely the softer kind of iron nodules found by Steenstrup in the basalt;[4] it stands exposure to the air equally well, and has similar Widmannstätten figures very sharp, as is to be expected in such a large mass. It contains, however, more nickel and also phosphorus. A few other minerals may be noticed, and some have been worked to a small extent—graphite is abundant, particularly near Upernivik; cryolite is found almost exclusively at Ivigtut; copper has been observed at several places, but only in nodules and laminae of limited extent; and coal of poor quality is found in the districts about Disco Bay and Umanak Fjord. Steatite or soapstone has long been used by the natives for the manufacture of lamps and vessels.
Climate.—The climate is very uncertain, the weather changing suddenly from bright sunshine (when mosquitoes often swarm) to dense fog or heavy falls of snow and icy winds. At Julianehaab in the extreme south-west the winter is not much colder than that of Norway and Sweden in the same locality; but its mean temperature for the whole year probably approximates to that on the Norwegian coast 600 m. farther north. The climate of the interior has been found to be of a continental character, with large ranges of temperature, and with an almost permanent anti-cyclonic region over the interior of the inland ice, from which the prevailing winds radiate towards the coasts. On the 64th parallel the mean annual temperature at an elevation of 6560 ft. is supposed to be −13° F., or reduced to sea-level 5° F. The mean annual temperature in the interior farther north is supposed to be −10° F. reduced to sea-level. The mean temperature of the warmest month, July, in the interior should be, reduced to sea-level, on the 64th parallel 32° F., and that of the coldest month, January, about −22° F., while in North Greenland it is probably −40° reduced to sea-level. Here we may probably find the lowest temperatures of the northern hemisphere. The interior of Greenland contains both summer and winter a pole of cold, situated in the opposite longitude to that of Siberia, with which it is well able to compete in extreme severity. On Nansen’s expedition temperatures of about −49° F. were experienced during
- ↑ See A. G. Nathorst, “Bidrag till nordöstra Grönlands geologi,” with map Geologiska Foreningens i Stockholm Förhandlingar, No. 257, Bd. 23, Heft 4, 1901; O. Heer, Flora fossilis Arctica (7 vols., 1868–1883), and especially Meddelelser om Grönland for numerous papers on the geology and palaeontology.
- ↑ Medd. om Grönl., part iv. pp. 115-131 (Copenhagen, 1883).
- ↑ See Peary, Northward over the “Great Ice,” ii. 604 et seq. (New York, 1898).
- ↑ See loc. cit. pp. 127-128.
