NEW PHYSIOGRAPHY AND GEOLOGY OF GREENLAND 59 



Land down to the eastern side of Dronning Louises Land and thence 

 farther on to Franz Joseph Fiord, in which the innermost fracture 

 line shows very plainly, the gneiss plane appearing in the inmost 

 arms of the fiord. The same applies to Scoresby Sound. The 

 fracture lines seem to be grouped with a slightly concentric course 

 fairly parallel to the coast. Liverpool Land forms a horst of 

 gneiss, but otherwise the fractures descend in steps toward the 

 Atlantic. Fossiliferous strata are known from all geological 

 periods except Cambrian and Permian. The marine fossils, as 

 far as they have been studied, fall into line with corresponding 

 European faunas. 



On the eastern side of the Atlantic we know a locality which, 

 in spite of its small extension, is very similar to the east Greenland 

 fracture zone, viz., the Jurassic strata on Andrew near Lofoten. 

 Here, too, the strata are separated by a fracture of very considerable 

 size from the gneiss behind. All in all we can say that the Greenland 

 fracture zone, too, is connected with the Atlantic, and tectonically, 

 as well as stratigraphy cally and paleontologically, shows points of 

 similarity to European conditions. 



6. Greenland's basalt region. — It has long been known that 

 both the east Greenland and west Greenland basalt areas were 

 formed in the Tertiary period and they have often been mentioned 

 in connection with the Tertiary basalt strata which form Iceland 

 and the Faroe Isles, and are also represented in Scotland and 

 Ireland. Not only do petrographic and stratigraphic conditions 

 tempt us to regard all these basalt occurrences as belonging together, 

 but in a purely geographical respect, also, they form a unit, since 

 they aU, the west Greenland area excepted, lie on a large submarine 

 ridge across the Atlantic. 



If we look at a map it will at once be evident that the above- 

 mentioned depression across Greenland is situated exactly in 

 continuation of the great submarine basalt ridge. In Figure 3 

 I have marked the geographical extension of the basalts in the 

 profiles both on the west and east coasts, and the basalts on both 

 coasts prove to be situated at the exact spot where the low gneiss 

 country is suddenly replaced by 2,000-meter high mountains. It 

 would seem that there is a connection between the depression and 



