The karst and palaeokarst of North and North-East Greenland – physical records of cryptic geological intervals
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.34194/geusb.v49.8298Keywords:
caves, karst, palaeokarst, miocene, plioceneAbstract
Carbonate rocks of Neoproterozoic to Silurian age are abundantly distributed around the coasts of North and North-East Greenland. Palaeokarst horizons are particularly well developed within the Portfjeld Formation (Ediacaran – earliest Cambrian) and beneath the Buen Formation (Cambrian Series 2), and there are caves within Ordovician limestones infilled by Caledonian molasse of Middle Devonian age. The youngest karst is a series of caves distributed from Hall Land in western North Greenland to Kronprins Christian Land in eastern North Greenland. Caves within Ordovician carbonates in Freuchen Land are currently the northernmost documented karst caves globally. The caves are mainly open phreatic conduits, any fill that is present is unlithified, and cave collapse is limited to minor breakdown associated with frost shattering. These geologically young caves are consistently located up to a few 100 m beneath the distinctive plateau that characterises the topography of the northern coast, and their identical context suggests that they developed in a single phase of speleogenesis. The caves are exposed where the plateau has been incised by outlet glaciers from the Greenland ice sheet. The timing of cave development in North Greenland is constrained by the mid- to late-Miocene (15–5 Ma) uplift of the plateau surface and the onset of fjord-forming glaciation in the latest Pliocene – earliest Pleistocene (c. 2.7–2.5 Ma). The evidence suggests that phreatic caves in the southern part of North-East Greenland, on C. H. Ostenfeld Nunatak, are of a broadly similar age. The caves of North and North-East Greenland offer a glimpse of large-scale phreatic drainage systems that developed below an uplifted coastal peneplain during Neogene time. They preserve an important part of the geological history of North and North-East Greenland that is otherwise absent from the physical geological record.
Downloads
References
Armstrong, H.A., 1990: Conodonts from the Upper Ordovician–lower Silurian carbonate platform of North Greenland. Bulletin Grønlands Geologiske Undersøgelse 159, 151 pp. https://doi.org/10.34194/bullggu.v159.6709
Bengaard, H.J. & Henriksen, N. 1986: Geological map of Greenland, 1:500 000, Sheet 8, Peary Land. Copenhagen: Geological Survey of Greenland. https://doi.org/10.22008/FK2/Q7HIDY
Bennike, O. 1998: Late Cenozoic wood from Washington Land. Geological Survey Bulletin 180, 155–158. https://doi.org/10.34194/ggub.v180.5100
Bennike, O. 2000: Notes on the late Cenozoic history of the Washington Land area, western North Greenland. Geological Survey Bulletin 186, 29–34. https://doi.org/10.34194/ggub.v186.5212
Bennike, O., Knudsen, K.L., Abrahamsen, N., Böcher, J., Cremer, H. & Wagner, B. 2010: Early Pleistocene sediments on Store Koldewey, Northeast Greenland. Boreas 39, 603–619. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1502-3885.2010.00147.x
Bierman, P.R., Shakun, J.D., Corbett, L.B., Zimmerman, S.R. & Rood, D.H. 2016: A persistent and dynamic East Greenland Ice Sheet over the past 7.5 million years. Nature 540, 256–260. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature20147
Bonow, J.M. & Japsen, P. 2021: Peneplains and tectonics in North-East Greenland after opening of the North-East Atlantic. GEUS Bulletin 45(1), 5297. https://doi.org/10.34194/geusb.v45.5297
Cohen, K.M., Finney, S.C., Gibbard, P.L. & Fan, J.-X. 2013: The ICS International Chronostratigraphic Chart (updated July 2021). Episodes 36. 199–204. http://www.stratigraphy.org/ICSchart/ChronostratChart2021-07.pdf
Cowie, J.W. & Adams, P.J. 1957: The geology of the Cambro-Ordovician rocks of East Greenland. Meddelelser om Grønland 153(1), 193 pp.
Davies, W.E. & Krinsley, D.B. 1960: Caves in northern Greenland. National Speleological Society Bulletin 22, 114–116.
Dawes, P.R., Glendal, E.W. & Holst, J. 2016: A glossary for GEUS publications: Spelling and usage of troublesome words and names made easy. Danmarks og Grønlands Geologiske Undersøgelse Rapport 2016/3, 74 pp.
DeConto, R., Pollard, D., Wilson, P., Pälike, H., Lear, C.H. & Pagani, M. 2008: Thresholds for Cenozoic bipolar glaciation. Nature 455, 652–656. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature07337
Derby, J.R., Raine, R.J., Smith, M.P. & Runkel, A.C. 2012: Paleogeography of the Great American Carbonate Bank of Laurentia in the earliest Ordovician (early Tremadocian): The Stonehenge transgression. In: Derby, J.R. et al. (eds): The Great American Carbonate Bank: The geology and economic resources of the Cambrian–Ordovician Sauk megasequence of Laurentia. AAPG Memoir 98, 5–13. https://doi.org/10.1306/13331487m983496
Eldrett, J.S., Greenwood, D.R., Harding, I.C. & Huber, M. 2009: Increased seasonality through the Eocene to Oligocene transition in northern high latitudes. Nature 459, 969–973. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature08069
Eldrett, J.S., Harding, I.C., Wilson, P.A., Butler, E. & Roberts, A.P. 2007: Continental ice in Greenland during the Eocene and Oligocene. Nature 446, 176–179. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature05591
Epstein, A.G., Epstein, J.B. & Harris, L.D. 1977: Conodont color alteration – An index to organic meta- morphism. US Geological Survey Professional Paper 995, 27 pp. https://doi.org/10.3133/pp995
Escher, J.C. 2001: Geological map of Greenland, 1:500 000, Sheet 11, Kong Oscar Fjord. Copenhagen: Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland. https://doi.org/10.22008/FK2/NKHZZN
Flesche Kleiven, H., Jansen, E., Fronval, T. & Smith, T.M. 2002: Intensification of Northern Hemisphere glaciations in the circum Atlantic region (3.5–2.4 Ma) – Ice-rafted detritus evidence. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 184, 213–223. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0031-0182(01)00407-2
Ford, D.C. 1989: Paleokarst of Canada. In: Bosâk, P., Ford, D.C., Glazek, J. & Horâcek, I. (eds): Paleokarst. A Systematic and Regional Review. pp. 313–336. Amsterdam: Elsevier. https://doi.org/10.1016/b978-0-444-98874-4.50025-2
Fränkl, E. 1955: Weitere Beiträge zur Geologie von Kronprins Christians Land (NE-Grönland, zwischen 80° und 80°30′N). Meddelelser om Grønland 103(7), 35 pp.
Frykman, P. 1979: Cambro-Ordovician rocks of C. H. Ostenfeld Nunatak, northern East Greenland. Rapport Grønlands Geologiske Undersøgelse 91, 125–132. https://doi.org/10.34194/rapggu.v91.7632
Funder, S., Bennike, O., Böcher, J., Israelson, C., Petersen, K.S. & Símonarson, L.A. 2001: Late Pliocene Greenland – The Kap København Formation in North Greenland. Bulletin of the Geological Society of Denmark 48, 117–134. https://doi.org/10.37570/bgsd-2001-48-06
Golonka, J. & Kiessling, W. 2002: Phanerozoic time scale and definition of time slices. In: Kiessling, W., Flügel, A. & Golonka, J. (eds): Phanerozoic reef patterns. SEPM (Society for Sedimentary Geology) Special Publication 72, 11–20. https://doi.org/10.2110/pec.02.72.0011
Green, P.F., Japsen, P., Chalmers, J.A., Bonow, J.M. & Duddy, I.R. 2018: Post-breakup burial and exhumation of passive continental margins: Seven propositions to inform geodynamic models. Gondwana Research 53, 58–81. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gr.2017.03.007
Green, P.F., Lidmar-Bergström, K., Japsen, P., Bonow, J.M. & Chalmers, J.A. 2013: Stratigraphic landscape analysis, thermochronology and the episodic development of elevated passive continental margins. Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland Bulletin 30, 150 pp. https://doi.org/10.34194/geusb.v30.4673
Hambrey, M.J., Peel, J.S. & Smith, M.P. 1989: Upper Proterozoic and Lower Palaeozoic strata in northern East Greenland. Rapport Grønlands Geologiske Undersøgelse 145, 103–108. https://doi.org/10.34194/rapggu.v145.8086
Harper, D.A.T., Hammarlund, E.U., Topper, T.P., Nielsen, A.T., Rasmussen, J.A., Park, T.-Y.S. & Smith, M.P. 2019: The Sirius Passet Lagerstätte of North Greenland: A remote window on the Cambrian Explosion. Journal of the Geological Society 176, 1023–1037. https://doi.org/10.1144/jgs2019-043
Helland, P.E. & Holmes, M.A. 1997: Surface textural analysis of quartz sand grains from ODP site 918 off the southeast coast of Greenland suggests glaciation of southern Greenland at 11 Ma. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 135, 109–121. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0031-0182(97)00025-4
Henriksen, N. 1989: Geological map of Greenland, 1:500 000, Sheet 7, Nyeboe Land. Copenhagen: Geological Survey of Greenland. https://doi.org/10.22008/FK2/O16YSF
Higgins, A.K., Ineson, J.R., Peel, J.S., Surlyk, F. & Sønderholm, M. 1991: The Franklinian Basin in North Greenland. Bulletin Grønlands Geologiske Undersøgelse 160, 71–139. https://doi.org/10.34194/bullggu.v160.6714
Higgins, A.K., Gilotti, J.A. & Smith, M.P. (eds) 2008: The Greenland Caledonides – evolution of the northeast margin of Laurentia. Memoir of the Geological Society of America 202, xvi + 368 pp. https://doi.org/10.1130/mem202
Higgins, A.K., Soper, N.J., Smith, M.P. & Rasmussen, J.A. 2004: The Caledonian thin-skinned thrust belt of Kronprins Christian Land, eastern North Greenland. Geological Survey of Denmark & Greenland Bulletin 6, 41–56. https://doi.org/10.34194/geusb.v6.4817
Huselbee, M.Y. 1998: Late Cambrian to earliest Ordovician (Ibexian) conodont evolution and biogeography of Greenland and northwest Scotland. 296 pp. PhD thesis, University of Birmingham, UK.
Ineson, J.R. & Peel, J.S. 2011: Geological and depositional setting of the Sirius Passet Lagerstätte (Early Cambrian), North Greenland. Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences 48, 1259–1281. https://doi.org/10.1139/e11-018
Japsen, P., Green, P.F., Bonow, J.M., Bjerager, M. & Hopper, J.R. 2021: Thermo-tectonic development of the Wandel Sea Basin, North Greenland. GEUS Bulletin 45(1), 5298. https://doi.org/10.34194/geusb.v45.5298
Japsen, P., Green, P.F., Bonow, J.M., Nielsen, T.F.D. & Chalmers, J.A. 2014: From volcanic plains to glaciated peaks: Burial and exhumation history of southern East Greenland after opening of the NE Atlantic. Global and Planetary Change 116, 91–114. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloplacha.2014.01.012
Jepsen, H.F. 2000: Geological map of Greenland, 1:500 000, Sheet 9, Lambert Land. Copenhagen: Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland. https://doi.org/10.22008/FK2/GDCZIS
Larsen, H.C., Saunders, A.D., Clift, P.D., Beget, J., Wei, W. & Spezzaferri, S. 1994: Seven million years of glaciation in Greenland. Science 264, 952–955. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.264.5161.952
Loubière, J.F. 1987: Observations préliminaires sur les cavités de la région du Lac Centrum. Karstologia 9, 7–16. https://doi.org/10.3406/karst.1987.2152
Loucks, R.G. 2007: A review of coalesced, collapsed-paleocave systems and associated suprastratal deformation. Acta Carsologica 36, 121–132. https://doi.org/10.3986/ac.v36i1.214
Lyck, J.M. & Stemmerik, L. 2000: Palynology and depositional history of the Paleocene? Thyra Ø Formation, Wandel Sea Basin, eastern North Greenland. Geology of Greenland Survey Bulletin 187, 21–49. https://doi.org/10.34194/ggub.v187.5193
Mac Niocaill, C. & Smethurst, M.A. 1994: Palaeozoic palaeogeography of Laurentia and its margins: A reassessment of palaeomagnetic data. Geophysical Journal International 116, 715–725. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-246x.1994.tb03292.x
Miller, K.G., Kominz, M., Browning, J.V., Wright, J.D., Mountain, G.S., Katz, M.E., Sugarman, P.J., Cramer, B.S., Christie-Blick, N. & Pekar, S.F. 2005: The Phanerozoic record of global sea-level change. Science 310, 1293–1298. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1116412
Moseley, G. 2016: Report on the findings of the Northeast Greenland Caves Project 2015 expedition to Kronprins Christian Land, Northeast Greenland. 91 pp. Innsbruck: Northeast Greenland Caves Project.
Moseley, G.E. et al. 2020: Cave discoveries and speleogenetic features in northeast Greenland. Cave and Karst Science 47, 74–87.
Moseley, G.E., Edwards, R.L., Lord, N.S., Spötl, C. & Cheng, H. 2021: Speleothem record of mild and wet mid-Pleistocene climate in northeast Greenland. Science Advances 7(13), eabe1260. https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abe1260
Palmer, A.N. & Palmer, M.V. 2011: Paleokarst of the USA: A brief review. U.S. Geological Survey Scientific Investigations Report 2011-5031, 7–16.
Palmer, A.R. 1981: Subdivision of the Sauk sequence. In: Taylor, M.E. (ed): Short Papers for the Second International Symposium on the Cambrian System. U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 81-743, 160–162.
Palmer, M.V. & Palmer, A.N. 1989: Paleokarst of the United States. In: Bosâk, P., Ford, D.C., Glazek, J. & Horâcek, I. (eds): Paleokarst. A systematic and regional review. pp. 337–363. Amsterdam: Elsevier.
Pedersen, V.K., Larsen, N.K. & Egholm, D.L. 2019: The timing of fjord formation and early glaciations in North and Northeast Greenland. Geology 47, 682–686. https://doi.org/10.1130/g46064.1
Peel, J.S. & Smith, M.P. 1988: The Wandel Valley Formation (Early–Middle Ordovician) of North Greenland and its correlatives. Rapport Grønlands Geologiske Undersøgelse 137, 61–92. https://doi.org/10.34194/rapggu.v137.8016
Piasecki, S., Nøhr-Hansen, H. & Dalhoff, F. 2018: Revised stratigraphy of Kap Rigsdagen beds, Wandel Sea Basin, North Greenland. Newsletters on Stratigraphy 51, 411–425. https://doi.org/10.1127/nos/2018/0444
Peters, S.E. & Gaines, R.R. 2012: Formation of the ‘Great Unconformity’ as a trigger for the Cambrian explosion. Nature 484, 363–366. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature10969
Porter, C. et al. 2018: ArcticDEM. Harvard Dataverse, V1. https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/OHHUKH
Raine, R.J. & Smith, M.P. 2012: Sequence stratigraphy of the Scottish Laurentian margin and the recognition of the Sauk megasequences in the Scotland–Greenland sector. In: Derby, J.R. et al. (eds): The Great American Carbonate Bank: The geology and economic resources of the Cambrian–Ordovician Sauk megasequence of Laurentia. AAPG Memoir 98, 575–596. https://doi.org/10.1306/13331508m983507
Rasmussen, J.A. & Smith, M.P. 2001: Conodont geothermometry and tectonic overburden in the northernmost East Greenland Caledonides. Geological Magazine 138, 687–698. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0016756801005908
Sloss, L.L., 1963: Sequences in the cratonic interior of North America. Geological Society of America Bulletin 74, 93–114.
Smith, M.P., 1985: Ibexian–Whiterockian (Ordovician) conodont palaeontology of East and eastern North Greenland, 372 pp. PhD thesis, University of Nottingham, UK.
Smith, M.P., 1991: Early Ordovician conodonts of East and North Greenland. Meddelelser om Grønland Geoscience 26, 81 pp.
Smith, M.P. 2000: Cambro-Ordovician stratigraphy of Bjørnøya and North Greenland: Constraints on tectonic models for the Arctic Caledonides and the Tertiary opening of the Greenland Sea. Journal of the Geological Society of London 157, 459–470. https://doi.org/10.1144/jgs.157.2.459
Smith, M.P. & Bjerreskov, M. 1994: The Ordovician System in Greenland. Correlation chart and stratigraphic lexicon. International Union of Geological Sciences Special Publication 29A, 46 pp.
Smith, M.P. & Rasmussen, J.A. 2008: Cambrian–Silurian development of the Iapetus Ocean margin in Greenland and related areas. In: Higgins, A.K., Gilotti, J.A. & Smith, M.P. (eds): The Greenland Caledonides – Evolution of the northeast margin of Laurentia. Memoir of the Geological Society of America, 202, 137–167. https://doi.org/10.1130/2008.1202(06)
Smith, M.P. & Rasmussen, J.A. 2020: The geology of the Centrumsø area of Kronprins Christian Land, northeast Greenland, and lithological constraints on speleogenesis. Cave and Karst Science 47, 60–65.
Smith, M.P., Rasmussen, J.A., Higgins, A.K. & Leslie, A.G. 2004: Lower Palaeozoic stratigraphy of the East Greenland Caledonides. Geological Survey of Denmark & Greenland Bulletin 6, 5–28. https://doi.org/10.34194/geusb.v6.4815
Smith, M.P., Sønderholm, M. & Tull, S.J. 1989: The Morris Bugt Group (Middle Ordovician–Silurian) of North Greenland and its correlatives. Rapport Grønlands Geologiske Undersøgelse 143, 5–20. https://doi.org/10.34194/rapggu.v143.8055
Smith, M.P., Soper, N.J., Higgins, A.K., Rasmussen, J.A. & Craig, L.E. 1999: Palaeokarst systems in the Neoproterozoic of eastern North Greenland in relation to extensional tectonics on the Laurentian margin. Journal of the Geological Society of London 156, 113–124. https://doi.org/10.1144/gsjgs.156.1.0113
Solgaard, A.M., Bonow, J.M., Langen, P., Japsen, P. & Hvidberg, C. 2013: Mountain building and the initiation of the Greenland ice sheet. Palaeogeography Palaeoclimatology Palaeoecology 392, 161–176. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.palaeo.2013.09.019
Sønderholm, M., Harland, T.L., Due, P.H., Jørgensen, L.N. & Peel, J.S. 1987: Lithostratigraphy and depositional history of Upper Ordovician–Silurian shelf carbonates in central and western North Greenland. Rapport Grønlands Geologiske Undersøgelse 133, 27–40. https://doi.org/10.34194/rapggu.v133.7973
Studinger, M. 2011: https://michaelstudinger.smugmug.com/Greenland-2011/i-JRmSrZm.
Swett, K., 1981: Cambro-Ordovician strata in Ny Friesland, Spitsbergen and their palaeotectonic significance. Geological Magazine 118, 225–250. https://doi.org/10.1017/s001675680003572x
Swett, K. & Smit, D.E. 1972: Paleogeography and depositional environments of the Cambro-Ordovician shallow marine facies of the North Atlantic. Geological Society of America Bulletin 83, 3223–3248. https://doi.org/10.1130/0016-7606(1972)83[3223:padeot]2.0.co;2
Trettin, H.P. (ed.). 1991: Geology of the Innuitian Orogen and Arctic Platform of Canada and Greenland. Geology of Canada 3. 569 pp. Ottawa: Geological Survey of Canada. https://doi.org/10.1130/dnag-gna-e
Tull, S.J. 1988: Conodont micropalaeontology of the Morris Bugt Group (Middle Ordovician–Early Silurian). 366 pp. PhD thesis, University of Nottingham, UK.
Webb, J.A. & James, J.M. 2006: Karst evolution of the Nullarbor Plain, Australia. In: Harmon, R.S. & Wicks, C. (eds): Perspectives on karst geomorphology, hydrology, and geochemistry – A tribute volume to Derek C. Ford and William B. White. Geological Society of America Special Paper 404, 65–78. https://doi.org/10.1130/2006.2404(07)
Willman, S., Peel, J.S., Ineson, J.R., Schovsbo, N.H., Rugen, E.J. & Frei, R. 2020: Ediacaran Doushantuo-type biota discovered in Laurentia. Communications Biology 3, 647. https://doi.org/10.1038/s42003-020-01381-7
Woodhead, J.D., Sniderman, J.M.K., Hellstrom, J., Drysdale, R.N., Maas, R., White, N., White, S. & Devine, P. 2019: The antiquity of Nullarbor speleothems and implications for karst palaeoclimate archives. Scientific Reports 9, 603. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-37097-2
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2022 Paul Smith, Gina Moseley
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
GEUS Bulletin is an open-access, peer-reviewed journal published by the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland (GEUS). This article is distributed under a CC-BY 4.0 licence, permitting free redistribution and reproduction for any purpose, even commercial, provided proper citation of the original work. Author(s) retain copyright over the article contents. Read the full open access policy.
