Polar Podcasts

In Polar Podcasts, you'll hear stories from geologists who've spent their careers - their lives - exploring and studying the remarkable and remote geology of Greenland. Why did they become fascinated with Greenland? What were the problems and the discoveries that drove them? And what was it like working in these remote places, where few people venture - even now?

31: Allen Nutman: A lifelong love of making geological maps

In this last episode of Polar Podcasts, we hear more from Allen Nutman, Professor of Geology at the University of Wollongong in Australia, about his lifelong passion for making geological maps, focused particularly on the Nuuk region, where he has spent decades mapping some of the oldest rocks in the world.

01-26
15:05

30: Bjørn Thomassen: Chasing gold in wild weather, North-West Greenland

In this episode, we hear more from Bjørn Thomassen, emeritus senior scientist at the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland, about facing severe storms while following up on gold anomalies on Kiatak – Northumberland Island – in northwest Greenland.

01-19
17:42

29: Kent Brooks: Mantle xenoliths and dislocated shoulders

In this episode we hear more from Kent Brooks, emeritus Professor at the Geological Museum in Copenhagen, about the chance discovery of an unusual rock he picked up in East Greenland that led to years of productive research about the nature of the Earth’s mantle far beneath the Earth’s surface.

01-12
11:12

28: Bjørn Thomassen: Encounters with animals while prospecting for lead-zinc in east Greenland

In this episode, we hear more from Bjørn Thomassen, Emeritus senior scientist at the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland, about some of his experiences with wildlife around Flemming Fjord, in central East Greenland, while prospecting for barium, lead and zinc.

01-05
12:48

27: Agnete Steenfelt – From geochemical exploration to a Greenland-wide geochemical map

In this episode, we hear more from Agnete Steenfelt, emeritus senior scientist at the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland, about developing the Greenland-wide geochemical sampling into a regional geochemical map of the whole island – a culmination of over 30 years work.

12-29
10:54

26: Bjørn Thomassen – Stalked by a polar bear in East Greenland

In this episode we hear more from Bjørn Thomassen, emeritus senior scientist at the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland, about a close encounter with a polar bear while on field work in east Greenland.

12-22
10:58

25: Brian Upton: Working in remote Northeast Greenland

In this episode, we hear more from Brian Upton, Emeritus Professor at the University of Edinburgh, about his expeditions to Northeast and North Greenland with the Geological Survey of Greenland, in environments in stark contrast to where he had been working in South Greenland.

12-15
09:21

24: Allen Nutman – “Faraway places with unpronounceable names” – dating Greenland’s ancient rocks

In this episode, we hear more from Allen Nutman, Professor of Geology at the University of Wollongong in Australia, about his work on dating some of the oldest rocks in the world, in the Isua supracrustal belt, close to the inland ice in the Nuuk region.

12-08
25:38

23: Bjørn Thomassen: Vertical fieldwork – exploring the niobium-tantalum-enriched Motzfeldt Intrusion

In this episode we hear more from Bjørn Thomassen, emeritus senior scientist, about his first job working for the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland, running a field program to study the niobium- and tantalum-enriched Motzfeldt Intrusion in South Greenland.

12-01
18:20

22: Bjørn Thomassen – Mining the Black Angel

In this episode, we hear more from Bjørn Thomassen, emeritus senior scientist from the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland, about his time working as a geologist and later a mine inspector at the Black Angel lead zinc mine in west Greenland.

11-24
24:11

21: Niels Henriksen: Reaching remote western North Greenland – mapping the Thule region

In this episode, we hear more from Niels Henriksen, emeritus senior scientist at the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland, about geological mapping in remote western North Greenland in the mid 1980s.

11-17
14:23

20: Allen Nutman: “What if the boundary is folded?” – figuring out the structure of Earth’s ancient crust

In this episode, we hear more from Allen Nutman, Professor of Geology at the University of Wollongong in Australia, about how his mapping work together with Vic McGregor and Clark Friend led to the beginnings of a model for how the ancient rocks in the Nuuk region were formed as a series of distinct small continents that collided with each other about 2.7 billion years ago.

11-10
14:08

19: Kent Brooks: “Nanoq! Nanoq!” Close encounters with polar bears in East Greenland

In this episode we hear more from Kent Brooks, emeritus Professor at the Geological Museum in Copenhagen, about his encounters with polar bears while on geological field work in East Greenland.

11-03
13:08

18: Agnete Steenfelt – The beginnings of systematic geochemical exploration of Greenland

In this episode, we hear more from Agnete Steenfelt, emeritus senior scientist at the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland, about introducing a program of stream sediment sampling to surveys in East Greenland in the mid-1970s – a program that would ultimately grow to decades of work and tens of thousands of samples covering almost the entirety of Greenland.

10-27
13:18

17: Allen Nutman: “Paired for life” – the beginning of a career mapping the oldest rocks in the world

In this episode we hear from Allen Nutman, Professor of Geology at the University of Wollongong in Australia, about his early years working as a field assistant in Greenland while studying geology at Exeter University, which led him to work for the Geological Survey of Greenland and later, to life-long research collaborations with two other geologists, particularly focused on some of the oldest rocks on Earth.

10-20
18:04

16: Kent Brooks: Discovering gold in the Skaergaard intrusion

In this episode, we hear more from Kent Brooks, Emeritus Professor at the Geological Museum in Copenhagen. After a sabbatical working in Papua New Guinea in the mid-1980s, Kent returned to working in East Greenland and the next phase in the story of understanding the Skaergaard intrusion – discovering gold .

10-13
18:51

15: Agnete Steenfelt – Exploring for uranium in East Greenland in the 1970s

In this episode, we hear from Agnete Steenfelt, emeritus senior scientist at the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland, about how she started out with the Geological Survey of Greenland in 1972 exploring for uranium – the beginnings of what would become a career that brought modern geochemical mapping and exploration to Greenland

10-06
11:30

14: Bjørn Thomassen – One Man Expedition in East Greenland

In this episode we hear from Bjørn Thomassen, emeritus senior scientist at the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland, about his one man expedition in East Greenland while working for the Nordic Mining Company in 1973, an expedition that subsequently resulted in extensive exploration for copper.

09-29
09:28

13: Kent Brooks: “Mayday, mayday, mayday, helicopter going down”

In this episode, we hear from Kent Brooks, Emeritus Professor at the Geological Museum in Copenhagen, about a very close call while working for a mineral exploration company in East Greenland in the early 1970s.

09-22
08:18

12: Niels Henriksen – Mapping remote, uninhabited eastern North Greenland

In this episode, we hear more from Niels Henriksen, emeritus senior scientist at the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland, about geological mapping in the most inaccessible part of Greenland – north Greenland – in the mid to late 1970s.

09-15
13:51

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