QEQERTAQ AVANNARLEQ

A new island has been discovered that is located off the Greenland’s coast.

Important points:

• Measuring 60×30 metres and with a peak of three metres above sea level, it has now become the new northernmost piece of land on Earth. Before this, Oodaaq was marked as the Earth’s northernmost terrain.
• It is made up of seabed mud and moraine, i.e. soil, rock and other material left behind by moving glaciers, and has no vegetation.
• The researchers have suggested the discovery be named ‘Qeqertaq Avannarleq’, which is Greenlandic for “the northernmost island”.
• The discovery comes as a battle is looming among Arctic nations, the US, Russia, Canada, Denmark and Norway for the control of the North Pole and of the surrounding seabed, fishing rights and shipping routes exposed by melting ice due to climate change.
• Global warming might have had a severe effect on the ice sheet of Greenland, but the new island however is not a direct consequence of climate change.

SOURCE: THE HINDU,THE ECONOMIC TIMES,MINT