Jan 29, 2026 08:28 PM
https://theconversation.com/greenland-is...why-273022
EXCERPTS: Geologically speaking, it is highly unusual (and exciting for geologists like me) for one area to have experienced all three key ways that natural resources – from oil and gas to REEs and gems – are generated. These processes relate to episodes of mountain building, rifting (crustal relaxation and extension), and volcanic activity.
Greenland was shaped by many prolonged periods of mountain building. These compressive forces broke up its crust, allowing gold, gems such as rubies, and graphite to be deposited in the faults and fractures. Graphite is crucial for the production of lithium batteries but remains “underexplored”, according to the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland, relative to major producers such as China and South Korea.
But the greatest proportion of Greenland’s natural resources originates from its periods of rifting – including, most recently, the formation of the Atlantic Ocean from the beginning of the Jurassic Period just over 200 million years ago.
[...] Greenland’s onshore sedimentary basins such as the Jameson Land Basin appear to hold the greatest potential of oil and gas reserves, analogous to Norway’s hydrocarbon-rich continental shelf. However, prohibitively high costs have limited commercial exploration. There is also a growing body of research suggesting potentially extensive petroleum systems ringing the entirety of offshore Greenland.
Metals such as lead, copper, iron and zinc are also present in the onshore (mostly ice-free) sedimentary basins, and have been worked locally, on a small scale, since 1780.
While not as intimately related to volcanic activity as nearby Iceland – which, uniquely, sits at the intersection of a mid-ocean ridge and a mantle plume – many of Greenland’s critical raw materials owe their existence to its volcanic history... (MORE - missing details)
EXCERPTS: Geologically speaking, it is highly unusual (and exciting for geologists like me) for one area to have experienced all three key ways that natural resources – from oil and gas to REEs and gems – are generated. These processes relate to episodes of mountain building, rifting (crustal relaxation and extension), and volcanic activity.
Greenland was shaped by many prolonged periods of mountain building. These compressive forces broke up its crust, allowing gold, gems such as rubies, and graphite to be deposited in the faults and fractures. Graphite is crucial for the production of lithium batteries but remains “underexplored”, according to the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland, relative to major producers such as China and South Korea.
But the greatest proportion of Greenland’s natural resources originates from its periods of rifting – including, most recently, the formation of the Atlantic Ocean from the beginning of the Jurassic Period just over 200 million years ago.
[...] Greenland’s onshore sedimentary basins such as the Jameson Land Basin appear to hold the greatest potential of oil and gas reserves, analogous to Norway’s hydrocarbon-rich continental shelf. However, prohibitively high costs have limited commercial exploration. There is also a growing body of research suggesting potentially extensive petroleum systems ringing the entirety of offshore Greenland.
Metals such as lead, copper, iron and zinc are also present in the onshore (mostly ice-free) sedimentary basins, and have been worked locally, on a small scale, since 1780.
While not as intimately related to volcanic activity as nearby Iceland – which, uniquely, sits at the intersection of a mid-ocean ridge and a mantle plume – many of Greenland’s critical raw materials owe their existence to its volcanic history... (MORE - missing details)