Left to right: Owen, Thomas, Carrie, Charlie, Paul, Mia and Cat with a stroopwaffel (essential field fuel provided by our Dutch collaborators).
Returning to Greenland
Two years ago, Carrie Soderman, Charlie Beard and I ventured to southern Greenland for fieldwork investigating the formation of rare-earth element (REE) deposits in the region.
Returning to the area earlier this summer, it was timely to reflect on what had changed in the interim. For one, our trio had expanded to a septet, as this time we were joined by two Masters students (Mia and Thomas), a PhD student (Cat) and a Professor (Paul), with our team representing institutions at Cambridge, Utrecht and Copenhagen.
We were also flying into a new airport, as the previous transport hub of Narsarsuaq had been replaced by the much larger gateway of Qaqortoq; the fourth-largest town in Greenland with a population of 3,000.
View over Qaqortoq, Greenland.
Even the road from the airport was a novelty, as at 6.2 kilometres long it is the longest that has been built in Greenland since WW2. From this fresh base we were travelling to two new areas—Kangilinnguit and Nunarsuit—both of which form part of the regional ‘Gardar’ alkaline-silicate magmatic province.
The Gardar province is of international interest because it hosts the largest undeveloped REE deposit in the world, in a magmatic centre called Ilimmaasaq. An outstanding question is what causes variation in mineralisation across the region, as many of the intrusions are otherwise barren. We are particularly interested in this problem as REEs are a ‘critical raw material’ for many countries, essential to the production of a range of green technologies but limited by a narrow supply chain.
Map of 2026 field sites in southern Greenland
Back in 2024 we focussed on the REE deposits of Ilimmaasaq, and the nearby intrusion of Illerfissalik that had enriched the surrounding rocks in REEs in a process known as ‘fenitisation’.
This time we were travelling further afield to the oldest (Kangilinnguit) and the largest (Nunarsuit) parts of the Gardar province, both of which have minimal REE mineralisation.
Through studying this range of intrusion types, we hope to understand the tipping points in magma evolution that control REE mineralisation. Work by our group has so far shown that the source rocks that melted to form Gardar magmas vary little over the region (Beard et al., 2024), and subsequently highlight the role of crystallisation pressure, oxidation state and crustal assimilation in determining mineralisation potential (Soderman et al., 2025a,b).
Into the field
After enjoying a few days in the colourful town of Qaqortoq arranging final logistics and renting polar bear deterrents, we transferred to our first field camp via boat. As we sped across the iceberg-laden waters, the trip started to feel quite familiar, particularly as we were adopting an approach to fieldwork known affectionally as ‘box life’. This approach involves shipping out long-life food in plastic boxes and then eating the contents fast enough to replace the volume with rock samples.
Our first field area was Kangilinnguit, previously the main Danish military base in Greenland. A skeleton crew now maintain the base, and we were grateful that they let use their port to unload our belongings and gave us a lift to the edge of their base to set up camp.
As we gazed up at verdant surroundings, we understood why the Danish name for the area (Grønnedal) translates as ‘green valley’, and were delighted to discover that we were sharing the view with several herds of muskox and reindeer.
Muskoxen. Credit: Charlie Beard.
We spent several days collecting samples for two MSci projects (by Mia and Thomas), with Cat resourcefully also collecting remarkably soft muskox wool for future knitting projects.
A highlight of this section of fieldwork was visiting the abandoned Ivittuut mine, from which the mineral cryolite was extracted until the 1960s and used for the smelting of aluminium ore. Cryolite is an excellent example of the temporal nature of critical raw materials as synthetic forms have replaced natural sources, rendering the mine obsolete. Perhaps REEs will also one day not be a critical raw material due to industrial or other advances?
Abandoned mine building, Ivittuut.
Next, we travelled to two different camp sites in Nunarsuit; the focus of a new PhD project by Cat. Our first northerly camp was notable for a curious Arctic fox, who took a nibble from Charlie’s footwear and dispersed our tea towels across the hillside.
We also enjoyed the spectacle of a humpback whale breaching in the fjord as we were mapping crustal xenoliths that had fallen into the ancient (1.1 billion years old) Nunarsuit magmatic chamber.
Our second more southerly camp site was the best of the trip, as it was located next to a lake just warm enough to swim in and faced west towards the imposing range known as ‘Kap Desolation’. While normally obscured by cloud, we enjoyed several sunsets that highlighted the craggy skyline. The neighbouring fjord also featured spectacular pegmatite bodies along its length, with amphibole crystals up to 1.5 metres in length.
Amphibole-bearing pegmatite.
Our trip was cut short by a day as an incoming storm meant an early pick up rather than sheltering from 50-knot winds; a reminder of the changeable and generally harsh climate that characterises the area.
We celebrated our final night by steaming fresh mussels collected from the fjord and enjoyed an impromptu salsa performance by our resident dancers, Carrie and Paul.
We just had time to forage crowberries to make purple porridge on our final morning before escaping the storm and watching a partial eclipse while our tents dried on a balcony.
As a last field visit, we took a day trip to the world-famous Ilimmaasaq locality, home to the largest REE deposit in the region. Unlike two years ago, helicopters were now constantly flying overhead with drill core as exploration continues to determine the tonnage and grade of the associated deposit.
The layered base of the Ilimmaasaq magma chamber. Note the orange helicopter for scale. Image credit: Charlie Beard
Back in Qaqortoq we carefully packaged up each sample, several of which are worthy of display in a museum, with our final shipment back totalling 375 kilograms. The trip was a great success, and we are all excited by the science to follow.
You can learn more about our project by visiting the ‘From Magma to Magnets’ exhibition in the Sedgwick Museum that we opened earlier this year.
Read more:
- Beard, C.D. Finch, A.A., Borst, A.M., Goodenough, K., Hutchison, W., Millar, I.M., Andersen, T., Williams, H.M., Weller, O.M. (2024) A phlogopite‑bearing lithospheric mantle source for Europe’s largest REE‑HFSE belt: Gardar Rift, SW Greenland. EPSL 640. 118780, doi: 10.1016/j.epsl.2024.118780
- Soderman, C., Weller, O.M., Beard, C., Riel, N., Green, E.C.R., and Holland, T.J.B. (2025a) A mid-crustal tipping point between silica-undersaturated and silica-oversaturated magmas. Nature Geoscience 18, 555–562, doi: 10.1038/s41561-025-01695-3
- Soderman, C.R., Weller, O.M., Copley. A, Finch, A.A. and Beard, C.D. (2025b) Petrogenesis of cogenetic silica-undersaturated and -oversaturated rocks: quantifying the role of crustal assimilation. EPSL 667, 119516, doi: 10.1016/j.epsl.2025.119516