Helsinki-A team of Danish Arctic researchers say they accidentally discovered what they believed to be the northernmost island in the world off the coast of Greenland.
Scientists at the University of Copenhagen initially believed that they arrived at Oodaaq, an island discovered by a Danish research team in 1978, and collected samples during the July expedition.
Instead, they ended up on an undiscovered island further north.
“I was convinced that the island we stood on was Oodaaq, previously registered as the northernmost island in the world,” said Morten Rasch, an expedition leader in the university’s Earth Sciences and Natural Resources Management Department. Stated.
“But when I posted a photo of the island and its coordinates on social media, many American island hunters got hooked and said it wasn’t true,” he said in a statement on Friday.
“Island Hunter” is known as an adventurer whose hobby is to search for unknown islands.
The unnamed island is about 850 yards north of Oodaaq, an island off Cape Morris Jesup, the northernmost tip of Greenland and one of the northernmost lands on Earth.
The small island, apparently discovered as a result of drift ice movement, measures about 100 x 200 feet and rises to about 10 to 13 feet above sea level, the university said. The research team allegedly proposed naming the island Qeqertaq Avannarleq, which means “northernmost island” in Greenlandic.
According to Rush, the island is mainly composed of small mounds of silt and gravel. He said it could be the result of a storm that gradually pushed material from the seabed until the island was formed, with the help of the sea. Danish researchers believe that the island is not expected to exist for a long time.
“No one knows how long it will last. In principle, it can disappear as soon as a powerful new storm strikes,” Rush said.
