Kristian Svennevig

• Cand.scient. Geology, Ph.D.
• Researcher at Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland

On November 21, 2000 CE, the c. 48 × 106 m3 Paatuut landslide in West Greenland triggered a tsunami with a maximum runup height of c. 45 m. Although a field team examined the landslide in the immediate aftermath, prior events and processes, in addition to the cause of the landslide, were never studied. We combined field data, satellite images, and...

Climate change is increasingly predisposing polar regions to large landslides. Tsunamigenic landslides have occurred recently in Greenland ( Kalaallit Nunaat ), but none have been reported from the eastern fjords. In September 2023, we detected the start of a 9-day-long, global 10.88-millihertz (92-second) monochromatic very-long-period (VLP) seism...

The possibility of increased landslide activity as a result of climate change has often been suggested, but few studies quantify this connection. Here, we present and utilize a workflow for the first time solely using publicly available data to assess the impact of future changes in landslide dynamic conditioning factors on landslide movement. In o...

Rock avalanche−triggered displacement waves (also termed tsunamis) have recently occurred in Greenland and Alaska, and they illustrate the presence of such hazards in polar regions. To improve understanding of the magnitude of this hazard for these areas, we investigated gigascale subaerial rock avalanches impacting a partially confined water body...

On December 15th 1952, at approximately 14:00 local time a mass of 5.9 × 10⁶ m³ of permafrozen talus deposits failed in a landslide close to the Niiortuut mountain on the south coast of the Nuussuaq peninsula, central West Greenland. Between 1.8 and 4.5 × 10⁶ m³ of the material entered the sea and generated a tsunami that propagated through the Vai...

Recent tsunamigenic landslides in the Arctic have highlighted the need for a better understanding of slope failures in remote Arctic regions. This study presents a systematic mapping of large landslides (area > 100,000 m2) that occurred in the past decade in Greenland using ArcticDEM data. We created surface elevation change maps from the DEM time...

The 2021-2024 Nordic Waste Landslide, located near the village of Ølst in East Jutland, Denmark, was a significant geohazard event, occurring within a former clay pit that had been repurposed as a landfill for polluted soil. This study provides a first analysis of the landslide's development, characteristics, and causative factors. The slow-to-mode...

The largest terrestrial coalescent landslide areas of the Earth, spanning hundreds to thousands of square kilometres, occur along the fringes of relatively low-relief sedimentary and volcanic tablelands. However, difficulties in landslide recognition in these areas have led to underestimations of their frequency and likelihood. In this Review, we e...

Data from an important historic article on late- and postglacial land-level changes in Denmark and the accompanying map are presented here in a new digital format. The original data were compiled in 1924 by Ellen Louise Mertz and comprise field observations of the marine limit in Denmark made over the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The origina...

The Vaigat strait (Sullorsuaq) in West Greenland is well known for its susceptibility to landslides and historical landslide-generated tsunamis. Recent mapping of the seabed in the Vaigat strait has revealed several prehistoric giga-scale (volumes of 109 m3) tsunamigenic landslides. However, the timing of these giga-scale tsunamis is largely uncons...

The possibility of increased landslide activity as a result of climate change has often been suggested, but few studies quantify this connection. Here, we present and utilize a workflow for using publicly available data to assess the impact of future changes in landslide dynamic conditioning factors on landslide movement. In our case of three slow-...

Climate change will increase the duration of annual sea‐ice‐free periods and shift precipitation patterns across the Arctic. Those factors are likely to increase erosion rates along its coasts. Large parts of the Arctic coast consist of hard rock. However, glacial, deltaic, and coastal sedimentary deposits occur in deglaciated areas and isostatic u...

The Vaigat strait (Sullorsuaq) in central West Greenland is well known for its susceptibility to landslides and historical landslide-generated tsunamis. Recent mapping of the seabed in the Vaigat Strait has revealed several prehistoric giga-scale tsunamigenic landslides; however, their ages are unknown. Here, we report sedimentological evidence fro...

When the Hale impact crater penetrated the martian cryosphere 1Ga, landforms indicating post-impact volatile mobilisation were generated. We have found landforms in the ejecta blanket of Hale Crater similar to ‘permafrost molards’ found in periglacial environments on Earth, and probably related to the past or present presence of volatiles at/near t...

A large landslide (frozen debris avalanche) occurred at Assapaat on the south coast of the Nuussuaq Peninsula in Central West Greenland on June 13, 2021, at 04:04 local time. We present a compilation of available data from field observations, photos, remote sensing, and seismic monitoring to describe the event. Analysis of these data in combination...

Landslides are a frequent natural hazard occurring globally in regions with steep topography. Additionally, landslides play an important role in landscape evolution by transporting sediment downslope. Landslide inventory mapping is a common technique to assess the spatial distribution and extent of landslides in an area of interest. High-resolution...

The Kravarsko settlement area, in northern Croatia, has multiple landslides and damage to buildings and infrastructure caused by landslides. However, actual landslide investigation data for the wider Kravarsko area (pilot area PA1) is relatively sparse and no landslide inventory or typical landslide model exists. The aim of this research was to dev...

Landslides are a frequent natural hazard occurring globally in regions with steep topography. Additionally, landslides are playing an important role in landscape evolution by transporting sediment downslope. Landslide inventory mapping is a common technique to assess the spatial distribution and extend of landslides in an area of interest. High-res...

On February 18, 2021 NASA's Perseverance rover landed in Jezero crater, located at the northwestern edge of the Isidis basin on Mars. The uppermost surface of the present‐day crater floor is dominated by a distinct geologic assemblage previously referred to as the dark‐toned floor. It consists of a smooth, dark‐toned unit overlying and variably cov...

Age assessments from both palynostratigraphy and macrofossil biostratigraphy of the sandstone-dominated Mågensfjeld Formation, Wandel Sea Basin, North Greenland were hitherto hampered by post-burial thermal degradation of dinoflagellate cysts and a lack of well-preserved macrofossils. The formation was previously assigned to the Upper Cretaceous ba...

I denne artikel præsenteres for første gang en dansk nomenklatur for arbejdet med skred i Danmark og Grønland, baseret på etableret international nomenklatur og klassifikation. Betegnelserne landskred og geofare introduceres som danske ækvivalenter til de etablerede engelske fagudtryk landslide og geohazard. Der introduceres yderligere nomenklatur...

Evaluation of the regional geotectonic impact of the High Arctic Large Igneous Province (HALIP) in the present‐day northern Atlantic region has been hindered by poor correlation between the Svalbard – Barents Shelf region and eastern North Greenland. New sedimentological and biostratigraphic data from Peary Land and Kronprins Christian Land (Kilen)...

The 17 June 2017 rock avalanche in the Karrat Fjord, West Greenland, caused a tsunami that flooded the nearby village of Nuugaatsiaq and killed four people. The disaster was entirely unexpected since no previous records of large rock slope failures were known in the region, and it highlighted the need for better knowledge of potentially hazardous r...

In Denmark and Greenland, there is a growing need for 3D geological models within the fields of aggregate prospecting, resources and vulnerability investigations of groundwater, geothermal investigations, urban planning, and geotechnical investigations, and specifically in Greenland, geohazard investigations, mineral prospecting, and mapping. For d...

The process of coastal erosion is well known to the public and decision-makers in Denmark; however, there is little awareness of the risks posed by larger landslides. Only a few scientific studies investigate landslides in Denmark, and as a result, the country is underrepresented in international landslide inventories. Here, we present a systematic...

Abstract. The 17 June 2017 rock avalanche on the south facing slope of the Ummiammakku Mountain (Karrat Isfjord, West Greenland) caused a tsunami that flooded the nearby village of Nuugaatsiaq, killed four persons and destroyed 11 buildings. Landslide activity in the area was not previously known and the disaster gave rise to important questions ab...

Coastal cliff erosion is often an underestimated process to understand shoreline evolution in Denmark. Cliff failure occurs episodically and not always coincides with the highest waves, making prediction difficult. Therefore, comprehensive knowledge about the spatial distribution of cliff erosion in Denmark and the historical rates of change are re...

The landslide of 17 June 2017 at Karrat Fjord, central West Greenland, triggered a tsunami that caused four fatalities. The catastrophe highlighted the need for a better understanding of landslides in Greenland and initiated a recent nation-wide landslide screening project led by the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland (GEUS; see also Svenne...

The landslide of 17 June 2017 in Karrat Fjord, central West Greenland, highlighted the need for a better understanding of landslides and landslide-generated tsunamis in Greenland and motivated a landslide screening project in 2018, led by the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland (GEUS; see also Svennevig et al. this volume). A central part of...

The geological map sheet of Kilen in 1:100 000 scale covers the south-eastern part of the Carboniferous– Palaeogene Wandel Sea Basin in eastern North Greenland. The map area is dominated by the Flade Isblink ice cap, which separates several minor isolated landmasses. On the semi-nunatak of Kilen, the map is mainly based on oblique photogrammetry an...

The geological map sheet of Kilen in 1:100 000 scale covers the south-eastern part of the Carboniferous–Palaeogene Wandel Sea Basin in eastern North Greenland. The map area is dominated by the Flade Isblink ice cap, which separates several minor isolated landmasses. On the semi-nunatak of Kilen, the map is mainly based on oblique photogrammetry and...

Geological maps are core products of national geological surveys and represent the sum of geological knowledge of any given area. However, dedicated and extensive mapping projects in the Arctic are mostly a thing of the past due to difficulty in financing such costly basic research efforts. Today, an overview of the geology of Greenland is portraye...

The benthic macrofaunas of the Upper Cretaceous chalk of NW Europe show characteristically high species‐richnesses and commonly high densities. They are predominated by bivalves, brachiopods, polychaetes, echinoids, crinoids, asteroids, sponges and towards the end of the Cretaceous also by bryozoans. The mound‐bedded chalk of the Coniacian Arnager...

Kilen, Kronprins Christian Land, contains the thickest and stratigraphically most complete Jurassic and Cretaceous sediment succession in North Greenland. This study revises and formalises the lithostratigraphic framework of these deposits. The work is based on recent extensive stratigraphic field work supplemented by photogeological mapping and bi...

Kilen is a semi-nunatak in the Flade Isblink icecap in eastern North Greenland with exposures of Mesozoic sedimentary rocks, which are part of the Wandel Sea Basin. Cretaceous marine mudstones and interbedded sandstones of the Galadriel Fjeld and Sølverbæk formations are thrusted and folded in large open folds at Gåseslette in the southeastern part...

The semi-nunatak Kilen is a key area to understand the setting of the Cretaceous sedimentary basin in eastern North Greenland. The basin geometry has been obscured by later N–S compression and inversion of presumable Palaeocene–Eocene age. A 3D restoration of the Cretaceous basin is presented based on new oblique photogrammetry and field data combi...

Triassic sedimentary rocks in the Wandel Sea Basin in North Greenland have hitherto been considered restricted to eastern Peary Land, but are here, based on fossil evidence, reported from additional two areas. The discovery of the halobiid bivalve Daonella subarctica Popov 1946 and the ammonoid Nathorstites cf. N. macconnelli (Whiteaves 1889) provi...

The aim of this dissertation is to describe the tectonic evolution of Kilen in eastern North Greenland through 3D-modelling of geological features mapped in oblique photogrammetry. This is described in depth in a synopsis, three articles and two manuscripts along with a geological map. In eastern North Greenland the Carboniferous to Palaeogene Wand...

The seminunatak Kilen in eastern North Greenland, with its complexly deformed Carboniferous-Cretaceous strata, is a key area to understand the tectonic history of the transform plate boundary between eastern North Greenland and Svalbard. Detailed 3-D geological mapping from oblique photogrammetry along with limited ground fieldwork and interpretati...

Following the intra-volcanic Rosebank discovery in the Faroe–Shetland Basin, NE Atlantic, there has been a need to find suitable analogues to characterize reservoir architectures, connectivities and compartmentalization of interlava clastic beds. The Faroe Islands, situated c. 160–190 km to the NW of this discovery, are an exposed remnant of the Pa...

The Carboniferous – Palaeocene Wandel Sea Basin is exposed in easternmost North Greenland (Håkansson and Stemmerik 1989). In the southern part of the basin a structurally complex succession of Mesozoic sediments is exposed on Kilen: a 300 km2 semi-nuna- tak (Fig. 1). Kilen was previously mapped during expeditions in 1980 and 1985 (Pedersen, 1989; H...

A need for suitable intra-volcanic analogues to elucidate upon, for example, reservoir architectures has arisen following the Rosebank discovery in the Faroe-Shetland Basin, NE Atlantic. The Faroe Islands, situated c. 160-190 km NW of this discovery, are an exposed remnant of the Palaeogene lava field host and the near-vertical cliff sections affor...

A poster for an internal meeting summarizing the method I use for data collection in my PhD.

The powerful 3D mapping tool at the photogrammetry laboratory of the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland (GEUS) is ideal for collecting high-quality 3D geological data in remote and inaccessible areas with a high degree of exposure such as Greenland (Vosgerau et al. 2010). So far this 3D mapping tool has been used to visualise and extract ve...