Greenland is rich in natural resources. A geologist explains why

Topographic map of Greenland

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Greenland is mineral and energy rich, about 50 times the size of current ‘parent state’ Denmark, and larger than every US state including Alaska. Small wonder that the US President and counterparts elsewhere see massive potential there, despite much of it being buried under huge amounts of ice. Of course the authors here can’t resist making their usual noises about the supposed climate effects of warming and energy exploitation.
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Greenland, the largest island on Earth, possesses some of the richest stores of natural resources anywhere in the world, says The Conversation (via Phys.org).

These include critical raw materials—resources such as lithium and rare earth elements (REEs) that are essential for green technologies, but whose production and sustainability are highly sensitive—plus other valuable minerals and metals, and a huge volume of hydrocarbons including oil and gas.

Three of Greenland’s REE-bearing deposits, deep under the ice, 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 scale of Greenland’s hydrocarbon potential and mineral wealth has stimulated extensive research by Denmark and the US into the commercial and environmental viability of new activities like mining.

The US Geological Survey estimates that onshore northeast Greenland (including ice-covered areas) contains around 31 billion barrels of oil-equivalent in hydrocarbons—similar to the US’s entire volume of proven crude oil reserves.

But 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—raising the possibility that huge stores of unexplored natural resources are present beneath the ice.

Greenland’s concentration of natural resource wealth is tied to its hugely varied geological history over the past 4 billion years. Some of the oldest rocks on Earth can be found here, as well as truck-sized lumps of native (not meteorite-derived) iron. Diamond-bearing kimberlite “pipes” were discovered in the 1970s but have yet to be exploited, largely due to the logistical challenges of mining them.
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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 licenses for exploration and exploitation, may increase amid the US’s strong interest in Greenland’s future.

Full article here.
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Image: Topographic map of Greenland