Bjørnesund Project, West Greenland

Abstract

The Bjørnesund Project is aimed at an evaluation of the mineral potential of the southernmost part of the municipality of Nuuk, between Bjørnesund and the large glacier Frederikshåb Isblink. One of the reasons that economic mineral deposits were expected to occur in the Bjørnesund area, was the presence of gold anomalies in heavy mineral concentrates from stream sediments (Appel, 1989). Another reason was the presence of anthophyllite-rich zones, presumed to have formed by hydrothermal alteration. At a fairly late stage in the planning of the field programme, the project was enlarged to include a regional geochemical stream sediment sampling programme in the area between 64°N and Bjørnesund. This latter part of the project was financed by a separate contribution from the Mineral Resources Administration, Ministry of Energy.