The aim of the LongTerm project was to study sediments, landforms and lakes – but also remains of former human habitation – on the coastal plain and along valleys leading into the alpine mountains to the south, supplemented with studies on processes along present glaciers.
The target for fieldwork was the coastal plain along the Arctic Ocean, its tributary valleys and valley glaciers. With altitudes below 100 m and a width up to 20 km, this coastal plain fringes the Arctic Ocean for ~100 km in Johannes V. Jensen Land. Unique to Greenland, the plain probably originated as an ancient marine abrasion terrace. It is covered by a continuous blanket of Quaternary sediment, and reconnaissance fieldwork in the snow-melt season has indicated that it contains a record of glacial and marine events and sea level change going back more than 40,000 years (Funder and Hjort 1980, Funder and Larsen 1982, Dawes 1986).
Principal investigator
Per Möller
Lund University