Why Greenland's Natural Resources Are So Sought-After, According to a Geologist
Greenland, the world's largest island, is a treasure trove of natural resources, according to a geologist. These resources include critical raw materials like lithium and rare earth elements (REEs), valuable minerals and metals, and vast hydrocarbon reserves. Greenland's geological history over the past 4 billion years has contributed to its rich natural resource wealth.
One of the most exciting aspects of Greenland's geology is the presence of REE-bearing deposits deep under the ice. These deposits may be among the world's largest by volume, holding great potential for the manufacture of batteries and electrical components essential to the global energy transition. The US Geological Survey estimates that onshore northeast Greenland contains around 31 billion barrels of oil-equivalent in hydrocarbons, similar to the US's entire volume of proven crude oil reserves.
Greenland's ice-free area, which is nearly double the size of the UK, forms less than a fifth of the island's total surface area. This suggests that huge stores of unexplored natural resources may be present beneath the ice. Greenland's geological history, including mountain building, rifting, and volcanic activity, has contributed to its rich natural resource wealth.
The greatest proportion of Greenland's natural resources originates from its periods of rifting, including the formation of the Atlantic Ocean from 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 hold the greatest potential of oil and gas reserves, analogous to Norway's hydrocarbon-rich continental shelf. However, prohibitively high costs have limited commercial exploration.
Greenland's critical raw materials, such as niobium, tantalum, and ytterbium, owe their existence to its volcanic history. These elements are increasingly seen as the most economically important yet difficult to source REEs because of their indispensable role in wind power, electric motors for clean road transport, and magnets in high-temperature settings like nuclear reactors. The development of known deposits such as Kvanefield in southern Greenland could easily affect the global REE market, owing to their relative global scarcity.
However, the global energy transition has major implications for the availability of many of Greenland's natural resources that are currently blanketed by kilometres of ice. An area the size of Albania has melted since 1995, and this trend is likely to accelerate unless global carbon emissions fall sharply in the near future. Recent advances in survey techniques, such as the use of ground-penetrating radar, allow us to peer with increasing certainty beneath the ice. We are now able to obtain an accurate picture of bedrock topography below up to 2 km of ice cover, providing clues as to the potential mineral resources in Greenland's subsurface.
But the extraction of Greenland's natural resources comes with an unfortunate dilemma. Should Greenland's increasingly available resource wealth be extracted with gusto, in order to sustain and enhance the energy transition? But doing so will add to the effects of climate change on Greenland and beyond, including despoiling much of its pristine landscape and contributing to rising sea levels that could swamp its coastal settlements. Currently, all mining and resource extraction activities are heavily regulated by the government of Greenland through comprehensive legal frameworks dating from the 1970s. However, pressures to loosen these controls, and to grant new licences for exploration and exploitation, may increase amid the US's strong interest in Greenland's future.
