Scientists mistakenly set foot on the northernmost island in the world, off the coast of Greenland, last month. The members of the expedition had set out to collect samples, but it turned out that they had entered the northernmost point of the Earth on Earth.
The island has a diameter of 30 meters and its summit is made of three meters of mud, soil, rocks and earth left behind moving glaciers. “It was not our intention to discover a new island,” said Morten Rush, arctic explorer and head of the Arctic Research Station in Greenland.
Another island
Scientists initially believed that they had reached Oodaaq Island, an island discovered by Danish researchers in 1978. It was later found that they were on another island 780 meters to the northwest.
Swiss entrepreneur Christian Lister, founder of the Leicester Foundation that funded the expedition, said: “Everyone was happy that we had found what we thought was Oodaaq. It is a bit like the explorers of the past, who thought they had arrived at a certain location. But they actually discovered a completely different place.”
The team believes “Qeqertaq Avannarleq” is a proper name, the green name for “the northernmost island”. The island was once covered in slippery ice, but is now undetected due to global warming, according to scientists.
Far North Island
The island is still above water at high tide and meets the criteria for being called so, says Professor Rene Forsberg, who advises the Danish government. He asserts that it is currently located in the far north of the island. He said such islands come and go. Forsberg does not believe the discovery will change Denmark’s claim to the area north of Greenland.
In the region, American expeditions have searched for the northernmost island in recent decades. In 2007 a similar island was found nearby.
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