FAGARTIKKEL av ekstern bidragsyter. | Denne artikkelen ble først publisert av The Conversation. I henhold til lisensieringen republiseres den på originalspråket engelsk.
Av Jonathan Paul, associate professor in Earth Science, Royal Holloway, University of London
Greenland, the largest island on the planet and a target of Donald Trump, has some of the richest reserves of natural resources in the world.
This includes essential raw materials — resources such as lithium and rare earth elements (REEs), which are essential for green technologies but whose production and sustainability are highly sensitive — as well as other valuable minerals and metals and a huge volume of hydrocarbons, including oil and gas.
Three of Greenland’s REE deposits, located deep beneath the ice, may be among the world’s largest by volume , with great potential for the manufacture of batteries and electrical components essential for the global energy transition.
The scale of Greenland’s hydrocarbon potential and mineral wealth has spurred extensive research by Denmark and the U.S. into the commercial and environmental viability of new activities, such as mining. The U.S. Geological Survey estimates that the northeastern coast of Greenland (including ice-covered areas) contains approximately 31 billion barrels of oil equivalent in hydrocarbons – similar to the total volume of proven U.S. crude oil reserves.
But Greenland’s ice-free area, which is almost twice the size of the United Kingdom, represents less than a fifth of the island’s total surface area – increasing the possibility that there are enormous reserves of unexplored natural resources beneath the ice.
Greenland’s concentration of wealth in natural resources is linked to its extremely varied geological history over the last 4 billion years. Some of the oldest rocks on Earth can be found here, as well as truckloads of native iron (not derived from meteorites) . Kimberlite “tubes” containing diamonds were discovered in the 1970s but have yet to be exploited, largely due to the logistical challenges of mining them.
Geologically speaking, it is highly unusual (and exciting for geologists like myself) for an area to have gone through all three major forms of natural resource generation – from oil and gas to ERTS and gemstones. These processes are related to episodes of mountain formation, rifting (relaxation and stretching of the Earth’s crust), and volcanic activity.
Greenland was shaped by many prolonged periods of mountain formation. These compressive forces ruptured 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 “underexploited,” according to the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland , compared to major producers such as China and South Korea.
But most of Greenland’s natural resources originate from its rifting periods — including, more recently, the formation of the Atlantic Ocean at 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 have the greatest potential for oil and gas reserves, somewhat analogous to Norway’s hydrocarbon-rich continental shelf. However, prohibitively high costs have limited their commercial exploitation. There is also a growing body of research suggesting the existence of extensive petroleum systems around the entire coast of Greenland.
Metals such as lead, copper, iron, and zinc are also present in terrestrial sedimentary basins (mostly ice-free) and have been mined locally, on a small scale, since 1780 .
Elements that are difficult to obtain
Although not as closely linked to volcanic activity as neighboring Iceland—which uniquely sits at the intersection of a mid-ocean ridge and a mantle plume —many of the critical raw materials there owe their existence to their volcanic history.
Elements such as niobium, tantalum, and ytterbium have been discovered in layers of igneous rock – similar to the discovery (and subsequent mining) of silver and zinc reserves in southwest England , which were deposited by hot hydrothermal waters circulating at the tip of large volcanic intrusions.
Among the REEs, Greenland is also projected to possess sufficient subglacial reserves of dysprosium and neodymium to satisfy more than a quarter of the projected future global demand – a combined total of nearly 40 million tons.
These elements are increasingly considered the most economically important due to their indispensable role in wind energy, electric motors for clean road transport, and magnets resistant to high-temperature environments, such as in nuclear reactors, but they are difficult to obtain.
The development of known deposits, such as those in Kvanefield in southern Greenland—not to mention those yet to be discovered in the island’s central rocky core—could easily affect the global REE market due to its relative global scarcity.
An unfortunate dilemma
The global energy transition is a necessity due to growing public awareness of the multiple threats posed by burning fossil fuels. But climate change has important implications for the availability of many of Greenland’s natural resources, which are currently covered by kilometers of ice – and which are a fundamental part of this energy transition.
An area the size of Albania has melted since 1995, and this melting is likely to accelerate unless global carbon emissions fall drastically in the near future.
Recent advances in research techniques, such as the use of ground-penetrating radar, allow us to observe with increasing certainty what lies beneath the ice. We are now able to obtain a precise image of the bedrock topography under up to 2 km of ice cover, providing clues about potential mineral resources in Greenland’s subsurface.
But progress in prospecting under the ice is slow – and sustainable extraction will likely be even more difficult.
Soon, an unfortunate dilemma will need to be resolved. Should Greenland’s wealth of resources be enthusiastically extracted in order to sustain and enhance the energy transition? But this could also exacerbate the effects of climate change in Greenland and beyond, including the destruction of much of its pristine landscape and contributing to rising sea levels, which could flood its coastal settlements.
Currently, all mining and resource extraction activities are heavily regulated by the Greenlandic government through comprehensive legal frameworks dating back to the 1970s. Pressures to loosen these controls and grant new exploration and exploitation licenses, however, may increase amid strong US interest in Greenland’s future.
