Greenland is the largest island on Earth.
Only one-fifth of its surface area is exposed
bedrock, the rest being covered by ice.
The exposed surface is approximately 410,000
km2.
The geology of Greenland is dominated by crystalline
rocks of the Precambrian Shield.
The crystalline rocks of the Nuuk/Qeqertarsuatsiaat
area comprise some of the oldest bedrock in
Greenland which covers most of western Greenland.
The surface has been altered several times
and has an appearance as though it were shaped
billions of years ago.
This is one of the reasons why the Nuuk area
is extraordinary and also because the particular
climate zone for the area limits the vegetation
which makes it possible to observe impressive
km-scale megascopic textures.
The bedrock around Nuuk consists of two major
lithologic packages, the dark melanocratic
Amitsoq gneiss, which is intruded by and complexly
folded into the younger leucocratic Nuuk gneiss.
This western gneiss complex is approximately
3600 million years old.
The Isua Greenstone Belt in the Isukasia area,
southwest Greenland, is extraordinary in that
it contains some of the oldest bedrock on
the planet, approximately 3800 million years
old.
The bedrock is not nearly as metamorphosed
as the surrounding gneiss bedrock and is therefore
of interest for answering how the earth's
surface appeared billions of years ago.
There is a massive magnetite resource in this
area.
There are large deposits of rare-earth oxides
at Kvanefjeld.
Greenland's first gold mine is the Nalunaq
mine, which opened in 2004.
Nalunaq is located 33 km northeast of Nanortalik,
in the Ketilidian Orogenic Belt of southern
Greenland (60° 21′ 29″ N, 44° 50′
11″ W).
Gold-quartz mineralization occurs along a
shallowly-dipping fault believed to be a thrust
fault in which the hanging wall consists of
Paleoproterozoic amphibolite-facies metavolcanic
rocks, and the footwall consists of variably
altered and mineralized volcanic rocks (i.e.,
volcanogenic massive sulfides).
Quartz-gold mineralization has been dated
to 1.77 to 1.80 billion years ago (late Paleoproterozoic),
during the Ketilidian Orogeny.The Skaergaard
intrusion is a layered mafic intrusion in
eastern Greenland formed 55 million years
ago during the opening of the North Atlantic
Ocean.
Skaergaard is one of the world's foremost
examples of a layered mafic intrusion which
exhibits exceptionally well-developed cumulate
layering.
== Fossils ==
A number of fossils were collected in Greenland,
mostly on the east coast, from Paleozoic to
Holocene, from which the Devonian Acanthostega
and Ichthyostega are examples of international
relevance.
The Late Triassic of Jameson Land is particularly
relevant due to the finding of early mammals,
found in the expeditions of Farish Jenkins.
The Fleming Fjord Formation yielded a number
of theropod and sauropod tracks, temnospondyls,
phytosaurs and stem turtles.
== See also ==
Gemstone industry in Greenland
== 
Notes ==
