Polar Podcasts

In this last episode of Polar Podcasts, we hear more from Allen Nutman, Professor of Geology at the University of Wollongong in Australia, about his lifelong passion for making geological maps, focused particularly on the Nuuk region, where he has spent decades mapping some of the oldest rocks in the world.

In this episode, we hear more from Bjørn Thomassen, emeritus senior scientist at the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland, about facing severe storms while following up on gold anomalies on Kiatak – Northumberland Island – in northwest Greenland.

In this episode we hear more from Kent Brooks, emeritus Professor at the Geological Museum in Copenhagen, about the chance discovery of an unusual rock he picked up in East Greenland that led to years of productive research about the nature of the Earth's mantle far beneath the Earth's surface.

In this episode, we hear more from Bjørn Thomassen, Emeritus senior scientist at the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland, about some of his experiences with wildlife around Flemming Fjord, in central East Greenland, while prospecting for barium, lead and zinc.

In this episode, we hear more from Agnete Steenfelt, emeritus senior scientist at the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland, about developing the Greenland-wide geochemical sampling into a regional geochemical map of the whole island – a culmination of over 30 years work.

In this episode we hear more from Bjørn Thomassen, emeritus senior scientist at the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland, about a close encounter with a polar bear while on field work in east Greenland.

In this episode, we hear more from Brian Upton, Emeritus Professor at the University of Edinburgh, about his expeditions to Northeast and North Greenland with the Geological Survey of Greenland, in environments in stark contrast to where he had been working in South Greenland.

In this episode, we hear more from Allen Nutman, Professor of Geology at the University of Wollongong in Australia, about his work on dating some of the oldest rocks in the world, in the Isua supracrustal belt, close to the inland ice in the Nuuk region.

In this episode we hear more from Bjørn Thomassen, emeritus senior scientist, about his first job working for the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland, running a field program to study the niobium- and tantalum-enriched Motzfeldt Intrusion in South Greenland.

In this episode, we hear more from Bjørn Thomassen, emeritus senior scientist from the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland, about his time working as a geologist and later a mine inspector at the Black Angel lead zinc mine in west Greenland.

In this episode, we hear more from Niels Henriksen, emeritus senior scientist at the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland, about geological mapping in remote western North Greenland in the mid 1980s.

In this episode, we hear more from Allen Nutman, Professor of Geology at the University of Wollongong in Australia, about how his mapping work together with Vic McGregor and Clark Friend led to the beginnings of a model for how the ancient rocks in the Nuuk region were formed as a series of distinct small continents that collided with each other about 2.7 billion years ago.

In this episode we hear more from Kent Brooks, emeritus Professor at the Geological Museum in Copenhagen, about his encounters with polar bears while on geological field work in East Greenland. 

In this episode, we hear more from Agnete Steenfelt, emeritus senior scientist at the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland, about introducing a program of stream sediment sampling to surveys in East Greenland in the mid-1970s – a program that would ultimately grow to decades of work and tens of thousands of samples covering almost the entirety of Greenland.

In this episode we hear from Allen Nutman, Professor of Geology at the University of Wollongong in Australia, about his early years working as a field assistant in Greenland while studying geology at Exeter University, which led him to work for the Geological Survey of Greenland and later, to life-long research collaborations with two other geologists, particularly focused on some of the oldest rocks on Earth.

In this episode, we hear more from Kent Brooks, Emeritus Professor at the Geological Museum in Copenhagen. After a sabbatical working in Papua New Guinea in the mid-1980s, Kent returned to working in East Greenland and the next phase in the story of understanding the Skaergaard intrusion – discovering gold .

In this episode, we hear from Agnete Steenfelt, emeritus senior scientist at the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland, about how she started out with the Geological Survey of Greenland in 1972 exploring for uranium – the beginnings of what would become a career that brought modern geochemical mapping and exploration to Greenland 

In this episode we hear from Bjørn Thomassen, emeritus senior scientist at the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland, about his one man expedition in East Greenland while working for the Nordic Mining Company in 1973, an expedition that subsequently resulted in extensive exploration for copper. 

In this episode, we hear from Kent Brooks, Emeritus Professor at the Geological Museum in Copenhagen, about a very close call while working for a mineral exploration company in East Greenland in the early 1970s.

In this episode, we hear more from Niels Henriksen, emeritus senior scientist at the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland, about geological mapping in the most inaccessible part of Greenland – north Greenland – in the mid to late 1970s.

In this episode, we hear from Kent Brooks, emeritus Professor at the Geological Museum in Copenhagen, and Bjørn Thomassen, emeritus senior scientist at the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland, about the summers of 1970 and 71 working for the Nordic Mining Company in East Greenland, when they discovered Flammefjeld, a spectacular red and yellow mountain that hides a buried mineral deposit, still undrilled fifty years later.

In this episode, we hear more from Niels Henriksen, emeritus senior scientist at the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland, about his years spent mapping the Caledonian Fold Belt, an ancient mountain belt in remote parts of northeast Greenland.

In this episode, we hear more from Kent Brooks – Emeritus Professor at the Geological Museum in Copenhagen – about the Skaergaard Intrusion, which he first encountered on a geological expedition in 1966, and which was to become the focus of his long career working in east Greenland. About his move away from Oxford to Copenhagen, forays into studying the unique geology of south Greenland, and being drawn back to east Greenland where his research interests would be firmly rooted for the decades ahead.

In this episode, we hear more from Brian Upton, Professor of geology at the University of Edinburgh, about his early years as a researcher when the theory of plate tectonics was being developed, his time at Caltech, in Iceland, La Reunion, and his experiences on returning to Greenland investigating plate tectonic links between in northwest Greenland and Arctic Canada.

In this episode, we hear more from Niels Henriksen, emeritus senior scientist at the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland, about the late 1960s, when the survey embarked on an ambitious and very successful campaign of systematic geological mapping in remote east Greenland, a completely different undertaking from their work on the west coast. 

In this episode, we hear from Kent Brooks, Emeritus Professor at the Geological Museum in Copenhagen, about a chance discovery while on a geological expedition to east Greenland in 1966, the implications of which followed him over forty years.

In this episode, we hear more from Brian Upton, Emeritus Professor of Geology at the University of Edinburgh, about working on the unusual alkaline igneous rocks of the Gardar Province in in South Greenland in the 1950s and later.

In this episode we hear from Bjørn Thomassen, Emeritus senior scientist at the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland, about what drew him to Greenland and kept him coming back for 42 summers, working as an economic geologist and mineral prospector.

In this episode we hear from Kent Brooks, Emeritus Professor from the Geological Museum in Copenhagen, about how his fifty year career studying the geology of Greenland, was kindled. And about his first – very memorable – field season in east Greenland in 1965.

In this episode, we hear from Brian Upton, Emeritus Professor of Geology at the University of Edinburgh, about starting out in South Greenland with the Geological Survey of Greenland in 1955, and what became a lifelong passion for researching and understanding the unique rare earth element-rich rocks of the Gardar Province, on which Brian would become a world expert, still publishing his research on their remarkable geology more than 60 years later.

In this episode we hear from Niels Henriksen, known to many as Oscar, Emeritus senior scientist with the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland, starting as a student with the Geological Survey of Greenland, only six years after the survey was established in 1946.

Welcome to Polar Podcasts, where you'll hear stories from geologists who've spent their careers, their lives, exploring and studying the remarkable and remote geology of Greenland. Why did they become fascinated with Greenland? What were the problems and the discoveries that drove them? And what was it like working in these remote places, where few people venture, even now? 

Welcome to Polar Podcasts, where you'll hear stories from geologists who've spent their careers, their lives, exploring and studying the remarkable and remote geology of Greenland. Why did they become fascinated with Greenland? What were the problems and the discoveries that drove them? And what was it like working in these remote places, where few people venture, even now? Allen Nutman, Professor of Geology at the University of Wollongong, spent his first field season in Greenland as a nineteen-year old student assistant with Exeter University and the Geological Survey of Greenland in the 1970s, the beginning of a career devoted to mapping Greenland's geology and particularly focused on some of the oldest rocks in the world:Allen's research is grounded in detailed geological mapping – an endeavor that, despite huge technological advances over the decades, still requires time and commitment to walking over a lot of ground and studying the rocks in detail. More than forty years later, he is still passionate about making geological maps.Polar Podcasts goes to air on August 4. Tune in and subscribe to hear Allen Nutman and other career Greenland geologists talk about their experiences working in Greenland over the decades.

Welcome to Polar Podcasts, where you'll hear stories from geologists who've spent their careers, their lives, exploring and studying the remarkable and remote geology of Greenland. Why did they become fascinated with Greenland? What were the problems and the discoveries that drove them? And what was it like working in these remote places, where few people venture, even now? Agnete Steenfelt – emeritus senior scientist at the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland, where she has spent her career – was one of few female field geologists employed at the Geological Survey of Greenland in the early 1970s. With European interest in nuclear power generation, she was led a program of radiometric surveying applied to uranium exploration in east Greenland.With her passion for geochemistry, Agnete was instrumental in introducing modern geochemical sampling and mapping to Greenland as a whole – a program that would grow to decades of work and tens of thousands of samples covering almost the entirety of Greenland, and resulting in geochemical maps on a continental scale that revealed the hidden nature of large-scale mineral enrichments in different parts of Greenland.Polar Podcasts goes to air on August 4. Tune in and subscribe to hear Agnete Steenfelt and other career Greenland geologists talk about their experiences working in Greenland over the decades.

Welcome to Polar Podcasts, where you'll hear stories from geologists who've spent their careers, their lives, exploring and studying the remarkable and remote geology of Greenland. Why did they become fascinated with Greenland? What were the problems and the discoveries that drove them? And what was it like working in these remote places, where few people venture, even now? Bjørn Thomassen – emeritus senior scientist at the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland – is a mineral prospector who has spent 42 summers exploring Greenland. Starting out as a field assistant for the Geological Survey of Greenland in 1964, he soon realized that his passion lay in mineral exploration and he became a junior exploration geologist for Nordiskemineselskab – the Nordic Mining Company, later working as a mine geologist at the Black Angel – Maamorilik lead-zinc mine in central west Greenland, and later still returning to the Geological Survey where he worked for many years exploring and documenting mineral occurrences in some of the remotest parts of Greenland.Bjørn was involved in the discovery of numerous mineral occurrences throughout Greenland, including the discovery in 1970 of Flammefjeld – a large porphyry molybdenum deposit in east Greenland, still undrilled after all this time.Polar Podcasts goes to air on August 4. Tune in and subscribe to hear Bjørn Thomassen and other career Greenland geologists talk about their experiences working in Greenland over the decades.

Welcome to Polar Podcasts, where you'll hear stories from geologists who've spent their careers, their lives, exploring and studying the remarkable and remote geology of Greenland. Why did they become fascinated with Greenland? What were the problems and the discoveries that drove them? And what was it like working in these remote places, where few people venture, even now? Kent Brooks – emeritus Professor at the Geological Museum in Copenhagen – first travelled to east Greenland in 1965 – the beginning of what was to be an adventurous, more than fifty-year career focused on understanding the geology of magmatic rocks of east Greenland.On one of Kent's earliest expeditions, he was involved in the discovery of a crashed American naval aircraft and he relates his involvement in the decades long saga of the recovery of the airmen who perished on board.Much of Kent's research has focused on the textbook geology of the Skaergaard Intrusion – a layered gabbro intrusion, research into which has been fundamental in understanding the way in which magmas form and differentiate in the Earth, also becoming involved in exploration that led to the earliest drilling of the Intrusion and the discovery of gold. Kent has also published extensively on the nature of rifting in east Greenland and of the Earth's mantle beneath Greenland.Polar Podcasts goes to air on August 4. Tune in and subscribe to hear Kent Brooks and other career Greenland geologists talk about their experiences working in Greenland over the decades.

Welcome to Polar Podcasts, where you'll hear stories from geologists who've spent their careers, their lives, exploring and studying the remarkable and remote geology of Greenland. Why did they become fascinated with Greenland? What were the problems and the discoveries that drove them? And what was it like working in these remote places, where few people venture, even now? Brian Upton – emeritus Professor of Geology at the University of Edinburgh – started working in South Greenland in 1955 and continues to publish research on its unique geology to this day.Inspired by early work on the emerging theory of plate tectonics while at Caltech in the 1960s, he was involved in testing the model in remote eastern and western North Greenland.Over the decades Brian worked in many parts of Greenland, together with the Geological Survey of Greenland. But throughout his career he has continued to return to the unique alkaline rocks of South Greenland, which remain his passion to this day.Polar Podcasts goes to air on August 4. Tune in and subscribe to hear Brian Upton and other career Greenland geologists talk about their experiences working in Greenland over the decades.

Welcome to Polar Podcasts, where you'll hear stories from geologists who've spent their careers, their lives, exploring and studying the remarkable and remote geology of Greenland. Why did they become fascinated with Greenland? What were the problems and the discoveries that drove them? And what was it like working in these remote places, where few people venture, even now? Niels Henriksen – known to many as Oscar – is emeritus senior scientist at the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland where he has almost seventy years experience working with the geology of Greenland. Starting out as a student at the University of Copenhagen, Niels had his first – and almost his last – field season in Greenland in 1952 with the Greenland Geological Survey, established only six years earlier.Over his career, Niels led the operation of large field programs throughout Greenland, including in some of its remotest parts, such as the Caledonian Fold belt of Northeast Greenland, and northernmost Greenland, where no one lives and where there is no infrastructure along a stretch of more than 1000 km of coastline bordering the ice-filled Arctic Ocean.Niels was instrumental in publication of numerous important maps and bulletins for the Survey, including the 1.2,5 million scale map of Greenland and the 1:1 million scale map of the east Greenland Caledonides, and popular science books including the Geological History of Greenland.Polar Podcasts goes to air on August 4. Tune in and subscribe to hear Niels Henriksen and other career Greenland geologists talk about their experiences working in Greenland over the decades.