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Greenland, the largest island in the world, lies between 60° and 83° north latitude in the Atlantic Ocean between the European and North American continents. Four fifths are covered with ice. In March 2025, US President Donald Trump's desires made headlines. In addition to military interests, he had an eye on raw materials, especially rare earths, or Rare Earth Elements (REE), whose deposits are of great importance in the ice-free part, which is slightly larger than Germany. The latter, also known as lanthanides, are all metals from subgroup 3 in the periodic table. Their name alone says that - when it comes to deposits worth mining - they are rare treasures of the earth's crust.
A look at the 2025 Raw Materials Report from the United States Geological Survey (USGS) shows the global situation for rare earths. From an American perspective, Greenland's deposits are obvious (in the truest sense of the word) areas of hope. The DERA study “Rare Earths” published by the German Raw Materials Agency in spring 2025 reveals further details. "Kringlerne/Greenland, with 4.9 million tonnes of SEO content (SEO: rare earths in oxide form), is by far the world's largest deposit with a dominance of medium/heavy rare earths." (page 71). There is also a report from the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland (GEUS) from 2023 on the potential of critical raw materials (CRMs) in Greenland, as listed by the EU as the "European Regulation on Critical Raw Materials". In addition, the "Greenland Mineral Resources Portal" provides a current, interactive synoptic representation of all raw material deposits, provided they are not covered by thick inland ice.
There is no question: Greenland is well researched from a raw material geology perspective and is an interesting country.
Knowledge about Greenland's raw material deposits goes back to large-scale international exploration campaigns in past decades. The Austrian geologists also made significant contributions, especially in the east of the island. If it was male-dominated back then, that needs to be revised. Erna Vohryzka is the exceptional woman in many ways. At the end of January 1960, at the age of 25, she was the first female geologist to receive her doctorate "sub auspiciis praesidentis" from the University of Vienna. She spent the summers of 1969, 1970 and 1971 in Greenland with her husband, the geologist Kurt Vohryzka and numerous other colleagues; at a time when others went on vacation to Jesolo or Grado on the Adriatic. They were all looking for raw materials in the far north on behalf of the Danish company Nordisk Mineselskab A/S.
Among the numerous geologists who took part several times were Wolfgang Schollnberger, who would later have a picture-perfect career in the oil industry, and Gerhard Malecki, who had a classic civil service career, including the title of councilor, at the Federal Geological Institute (today: GeoSphere Austria). Like geologist Wolfgang Frisch, who later worked as full professor of geology in Tübingen for 28 years on topics such as plate tectonics, they had all studied at the Institute of Geology at the University of Vienna.
From a local perspective, in the 1960s and 1970s, the Montanuniversität Leoben, which was called the Montanistische Hochschule until 1975, was in charge in many ways. The mastermind there was the internationally renowned and well-connected deposit geologist Walter E. Petrascheck (1906 to 1991). Gerhard Kirchner had already written his dissertation in Leoben in 1961 on a molybdenum deposit discovered in 1954 in northeast Greenland. In 1970, the development of the said deposit was the subject of a three-volume Leoben diploma thesis by the mining expert Karl-Heinz Krisch. This meant that Leoben's expertise had two legs: on the one hand, the search (exploration) for deposits and then, subsequently, their development, i.e. the extraction of mineral resources.
Wolfgang Frisch tells how the first of his three (1968, 1969, and 1971) stays in Greenland began: "After completing my doctorate as a geologist at the University of Vienna, on January 1, 1968, I took up an assistant position at the Montan University [sic!] Leoben with Prof. Petrascheck, professor of geology and mineral deposits. After a few weeks, Petrascheck asked me if I would come in the summer - I don't have to say yes straight away "I want to go to Greenland." Frisch followed Petrascheck's invitation and explained the details: "Erich Hintsteiner, a former Leoben graduate, organized these ventures for the company (Nordisk Mineselskab) [...]." What was essential for Hintsteiner was a good university education in geology and experience in alpine terrain. Therefore, primarily Austrian graduates from Vienna, Leoben and Salzburg as well as Swiss geologists from the University of Bern were involved.
Information in advance and contacts with previous Greenlanders were important and helpful. Schollnberger says: "I visited the Vohryzka couple in their apartment in Linz Gaumberg in the spring of 1970 to get general information about what was ahead of me, what was important to pack, what the right clothing would be, shoes, socks, crampons for the ice, climbing rope, accessory cord, etc. The Vohryzkas were both extremely friendly and enormously helpful and their information undoubtedly contributed to my two Greenland expeditions [1970 and 1972] were successful."
For a summer north of the Arctic Circle, swimming trunks are probably the most irrelevant piece of luggage. There was a list “as a guide” for the equipment to be procured. Three categories were listed: A. Clothing (including: “Headgear: pointed hood or headband + light fur hood”). B. Miscellaneous (including: "Pocket knife with can opener, saw and screwdriver" and also "Ev. Spices: To supplement the provisions") and C. Work tools (including: hammer, compass, "Photo equipment: + films for 2 months" and "Ev. Dictionary: Mini, Danish - German - Danish"). With all the documents there were also safety instructions, which clearly stated: “Task of the expedition: prospecting for deposits worth building.” Rock and ice, i.e. crevasses, falling rocks, avalanches, etc. were cited as dangers. The weapons that were handed out to the participants stated: "Serve for possible defense against polar bears (which 1. are strictly protected and 2. usually run away anyway), and for hunting hares and ptarmigan from August 1st. All other animals are taboo for us and may only be shot in extreme emergencies.)."
"In 1971, I was further south with my college friend Gerhard Malecki and a Swiss colleague, Hansruedi Keusen, at about 68 degrees north latitude, at the end of another fjord called Kangerdlugssuaq (there are several of them in Greenland)," Frisch remembers the last of his three stays. "We were looking for deposit indications in certain igneous rocks, so-called alkaline rocks, which are rare, penetrate the crust from the depths and usually form circular structures a few kilometers in diameter." For Frisch, Greenland was already routine in the summer of 1971. Everything was new for Malecki. He applied on April 5, 1971: "I have nearly finished my studies in geology and would be very interested in doing a job of this kind." Exactly two weeks later, on April 19th, Hintsteiner's answer came in German: "I'll probably come to Vienna at the end of the last week of April, I'll call you beforehand."
Sometimes things go like clockwork. On April 28th everything was finalized: "We hereby confirm your employment as a prospector for the summer period of 1971 in our concession area in East Greenland." Things were similarly uncomplicated for the Swiss geologist Hansruedi Keusen back then. The now expert in natural hazards and federally certified court expert in retrospect: "I was recruited by Erich Hintsteiner, who, after making an inquiry, invited me to a big meeting at his place in Salzburg. It was just a cheerful evening there [...] No formalities at all, no questions about my geological skills, completely uncomplicated. The next morning he told me that I could work for him in East Greenland in the summer of 1971. Basta. I mean [...] he just looked, whether they [the people] somehow fit into his concept and team."
Of course, the three didn't find the big bonanza, i.e. gold mine, back then. However, they were scientifically successful. The view from the helicopter was crucial. “When we look down from a height of perhaps 200 to 300 meters, we suddenly see something reflected on the ground. We had to take a closer look. […] We found a large intrusion of carbonatites, we called it the Gardiner Intrusion,” says Keusen. In two weeks, they mapped and explored the six-kilometer-diameter circular structure in eastern Greenland. What was striking were dark rocks that were visible from afar, consisting largely of dunite and pyroxenite. Malecki noted in his diary on August 1, 1971 in "Camp 3 Gardiners Plateau at 1 a.m.": "Wolfgang and HR (Hansruedi Keusen) are chasing the structure of the pluton (=intrusion) and are having heated discussions. They will probably publish the matter."
Frisch and Keusen, who published the mapping and analyzes of the 1971 expedition in 1975 and 1977, gave an upper Paleocene or lower Eocene age for the intrusion. In other words: in the period between 59 and 48 million years, magmatic rock melts penetrated granitic rocks of the basement and Cretaceous basalts of the earth's crust. Today the overlying rocks in the area of the said intrusion have eroded. Therefore, the plutonic rocks lie on the surface.
The rocks collected there were later examined and analyzed in Bern. They came across a small sensation: a rock that - according to Frisch - "had only been described once before, in the western United States. It has the exotic name Uncompahgrit after the Uncompahgre Valley in Colorado (the name is Indian)." Scientifically interesting in this igneous rock sequence are minerals containing rare earths. But proven deposits do not necessarily make a deposit worth mining. From the perspective of basic research, however, one could speak of a “bonanza”.
The then 27-year-old Malecki concluded his diary on August 30, 1971 with the sentence: "All in all, it was an extremely interesting and beautiful undertaking using all possible means of transport: train, three types of airplanes, car, small and large ship. I met a number of nice people and saw more in these two months than I had ever done before in my life."
Wolfgang Frisch sees things similarly positively in the summer of 2025: “I have seen many countries in my professional life – but East Greenland was the most beautiful of all!” On July 7, 2025, Keusen answered me when I asked about his memories of Greenland: "I read your message with great interest, thank you very much. My time in Greenland in 1971 and 1975 was the best and most beautiful thing in my professional life."
Schollnberger reported from the USA on June 4, 2025, he had something special in store: "My souvenir from Greenland was not a unicorn, but a magnificent and largely intact male musk ox skull, complete with upper and (!) lower jaw and many teeth, both horns completely (!) preserved. From 1972 to 1989 he (nickname in our family: "Jakob") was at the request of (Fritz F.) Steininger ("We find broken musk skull remains in Ice Age deposits in the Vienna Basin") on loan from me in the Paleontological Institute of the University of Vienna [...] When I was in Vienna in the summer of 1989 for the signing of the contract between Amoco and OMV (exploration in the deep Vienna Basin), I got it back here right next to me and I can send you a photo." (Thomas Hofmann, July 18, 2025)