The Continental Shelf Project of the Kingdom of Denmark – status and issues

This paper summarises the status of the Continental Shelf Project of the Kingdom of Denmark after the recent submission for an extended continental shelf in the area to the north of Greenland. We discuss some of the similarities between the submission areas north of the Faroe Islands and north of Greenland including the morphological continuation of ridges extending seaward of the geomorphical continental shelf. Documentation of the sediment thickness in the adjoining basins and sediment continuity with the continental slope plays a vital role in the delineation of the outer limits of the extended continental shelf. Here, we compare how these issues were addressed around the well-studied Faroe Islands and in the sparsely surveyed Arctic Ocean.