Epeirogenic Earth Movements in East Greenland and the Depths of the Earth

Abstract

SATISFACTORY geological evidence that the earth's crust has undergone powerful vertical movements unaccompanied by horizontal compression has seldom been obtained, and Daly¹ has recently given it as his opinion that such movements have not been sufficiently well proved to be taken into consideration in attempts to understand the nature of the earth's interior. During recent expeditions to East Greenland geological mapping has shown that the coastal mountains from lat. 66–70° N. were produced by a powerful, and geologically rapid, vertical uplift. Between the Denmark Strait and the adjacent mountain belt of East Greenland the relative vertical movement of the crust amounted locally to at least 3½ km. and was but little less over the whole stretch of 800 km. Such a displacement must be regarded as a major tectonic feature of the earth's crust and merits brief description as the full account, prepared for a Danish journal, cannot be published at present.