Arctic's Ghost Town Island Turned Out to Be A Filthy Iceberg

Formerly tagged as the northernmost piece of land or a "ghost island" in the Arctic region happens to be a dirty iceberg. With a landmass of 30 meters by 60 meters, the "island" was initially founded in 2021. It was sited on the northern coast of Greenland by a research expedition of scientists from Swiss, Danish, and Greenlandic organizations.

The Technical University of Denmark confirmed the filthy iceberg. The research expedition scientists are the ones who called it the "northernmost island," or in Greenlandic "Qeqertaq Avannaleq."

Atmospheric Sciences professor Kevin Hamilton of the University of Hawaii described the iceberg as small and gravelly and declared as a contender for the northernmost known landmass on the planet, he wrote in The Conversation.

Hamilton said that there is an ongoing mystery in the Arctic region. In the northern part of Cape Morris Jesup, several small islands that were recently discovered over the past decade then disappeared.

Cape Morris Jesup is located in the northernmost part of Greenland-the earth's largest island-located around 440 miles from the North Pole.

The Missing Island in the North

One of the missing islands of the north, named "Oodaaq Ø," was identified in 1978 and discovered in the polar ice cap of Cape Morris Jesup. After that, citing in 1978, various expeditions spotted more "ghost islands," some researchers theorized that rocky banks were underlying the seabed that had been pushed to the surface by sea ice.

According to research from the Technical University of Denmark, those small pieces of land are typically measured around 65 to 100 feet in width and have a thin layer of soil, mud, and pebbles. It was supported by Rene Forsberg, who was part of the research expedition investigating the phenomenon.

The expeditionary research visited multiple islands in the locale, including Qeqertaq Avannarleq. They collected the Global Positioning System (GPS) data and used laser scanning materials to measure ice thickness and depths.

(Photo: Martin Nissen)
Once called the northernmost piece of land in the Arctic region and perceived as a piece of the island, it turned out to be a dirty iceberg.

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Measuring The Icebergs

The region has never measured sea depths because the semi-stationary sea ice is between 6.5 and 10 feet thick. The study also revealed that the islands are not islands but huge icebergs that became stuck under the sea.

Finding these measurements "unequivocally confirmed that the reported small islands are flat-topped icebergs with an unusual cover of soil and pebbles, which have run aground in the area," according to Forsberg's press release.

Professor Forsberg said that the icebergs could be categorized as semi-stationary ice islands, which can well have a lifespan of up to several years. That includes the Qeqertaq Avannaeleq, a true island called "Inuit Qeqertaat," or "Coffee Club Island," which remains the northernmost and undisputed piece of land on the blue planet.

The expedition scientists said that the ghost islands most likely came from a nearby glacier around 25-30 miles in the western part of Cape Morris Jesup.