Activities of the BGR in the Arctic

Geologist camp on the Canadian banks of Nares Strait Source: BGR

The Arctic consists of an ice-covered ocean surrounded by continental land masses. The passive continental margins of this ocean are of major interest due to their presumably high potential in natural resources. On the other hand, the Arctic ecosystem, particularly in the permafrost regions, is extremely fragile. Hardly another region on Earth reacts as sensible to climate change as the Arctic.

The geodynamics of the margins of the Arctic Ocean, which represents a primary target of the BGR on a supra-regional scale, is studied within the frame of the CASE programme. In addition to onshore geological investigations, the BGR performs airborne aeromagnetic and marine geophysical surveys (PANORAMA) to better understand the evolution of the Earth’s crust in the Arctic.

Major scientific targets of BGR research are:

• the initial opening of the Arctic Ocean and related magmatism and the development of sedimentary basins,
  
• the reasons for the development of contractional structures in the Arctic and contemporaneous extension during the opening of the ocean basins e.g. the formation of the Eurekan deformation belt, extending from Spitsbergen across northern Greenland to the Canadian Ellesmere Island, at the same time as the opening of the Arctic Ocean,
• the role of large strike-slip zones, which have affected wide areas along the continental margins of Barents Shelf and North America.
  

Other research targets of the BGR in the Arctic were: 

• the continuation of the mid-oceanic ridge of the Arctic Ocean into the continental crust of Siberia,
  
• the study of the resource potential of the Laptev Sea,
  
• the Polar Urals with their high potential of chromite and elements of the platinum group.
  

The land areas of the Arctic and adjacent shelf areas are parts of the sovereign territories of the adjacent countries. For instance, the BGR has conducted research programmes in Spitsbergen in collaboration with the Norwegian Polar Institute. In Greenland, BGR has cooperated with the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland in Copenhagen. Fieldwork in Canada has been organized in cooperation with the Geological Survey of Canada in Calgary under the Cooperation in Science and Technology (CST) between Canada and Germany. In the Polar Ural fieldwork was realized in cooperation with the CST with Russia and the institutions of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Syktyvkar and Moscow. In east Siberia (Khatanga area, New Siberian Islands) fieldwork was only possible by cooperation with the Karpinsky Russian Geological Research Institute (VSEGEI) in St. Petersburg.