Welcome to Polar Podcasts, where you’ll hear stories from geologists who’ve spent their careers, their lives, exploring and studying the remarkable and remote geology of Greenland. Why did they become fascinated with Greenland? What were the problems and the discoveries that drove them? And what was it like working in these remote places, where few people venture, even now? 

Bjørn Thomassen – emeritus senior scientist at the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland – is a mineral prospector who has spent 42 summers exploring Greenland. Starting out as a field assistant for the Geological Survey of Greenland in 1964, he soon realized that his passion lay in mineral exploration and he became a junior exploration geologist for Nordiskemineselskab – the Nordic Mining Company, later working as a mine geologist at the Black Angel – Maamorilik lead-zinc mine in central west Greenland, and later still returning to the Geological Survey where he worked for many years exploring and documenting mineral occurrences in some of the remotest parts of Greenland.

Bjørn was involved in the discovery of numerous mineral occurrences throughout Greenland, including the discovery in 1970 of Flammefjeld – a large porphyry molybdenum deposit in east Greenland, still undrilled after all this time.

Polar Podcasts goes to air on August 4. Tune in and subscribe to hear Bjørn Thomassen and other career Greenland geologists talk about their experiences working in Greenland over the decades.