Anglo-Danish Universities East Greenland Expedition, 1977

Extract

A group of 10 geologists—6 Danish, 3 English and 1 Canadian—organised themselves last summer into an expedition to carry on their extensive field work on the Tertiary geology of the Kangerdlugssuak-Blosseville Kyst area of east Greenland. The English group was led this year by Dr N. J. Soper of Sheffield University, but overall leadership was under Dr C. K. Brooks of Kobennavns Universitet; the status of being an official Danish expedition as opposed to an independent English party made things much more straightforward. The expedition was notably successful in obtaining large quantities of data and samples from new areas of considerable importance to the studies of Tertiary stratigraphy and palaeomagnetism. 1977 was a uniquely ice-free year on the Blosseville Kyst and, apart from swell problems with small boat landings, sea access was easy. The ice break up and dispersal in, for example, Angmagssalik, was probably the earliest in living memory.