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Introduction
Peter Alsen currently works at the Department of Geoenergy and Storage, Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland. Peter does research in Paleontology, Geology and Biogeography primarily in Greenland and Spitsbergen and the Arctic.
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October 2007 - present
Publications
Publications (89)
The siliciclastic Bajocian–Bathonian Pelion Formation of Tværdal, Geographical Society Ø, East Greenland, is dominated by shallow-marine sandstones, which yielded 22 bivalve taxa representing 18 genera; these are described and figured here. The type species of the subgenus Strimodiolus, Modiolus (Strimodiolus) elongatus Fürsich, 1982, is a junior h...
Marine sequences on Wollaston Forland, North‐East Greenland have provided rich belemnite assemblages of Barremian (Early Cretaceous) age. Most common are belemnites of Boreal affinities, closely related to northwest European faunas. Remarkable are the findings of 47 rostra of Duvalia , a genus of Tethyan origin. In addition to Duvalia grasiana , Du...
D’Orbigny named the Callovian stage after Kellaways in Wiltshire, UK, in the 1850 s. However, agreement on its boundaries and, more recently, on the position and location of the Global Boundary Stratotype Section and Point (GSSP) for the base of the Callovian has proven difficult for the last 170 years. This is mainly due to the lack of agreement o...
Denne artikel er skrevet på engelsk, idet det manuskript, den tysk-fødte palaeontolog Curt Teichert efterlod sig om sine år i København midt i 1930erne, er forfattet på engelsk, og ikke mindst fordi hans historie er af almen, international interesse.
Lower Cretaceous stratigraphy of the high palaeo-latitude Arctic-Boreal Realm is generally more poorly understood than its lower-latitude Tethyan counterpart, prohibiting regional correlations and evaluation of global climate dynamics during this important high- p CO 2 period. In this paper, a holostratigraphic scheme and lithostratigraphic revisio...
The Oxfordian–Ryazanian was a period of widespread deposition of marine organic-rich mudstones in basins formed during the early phases of the rifting that heralded the formation of the present-day North Atlantic. Occasionally, uninterrupted deposition prevailed for 20 million years or more. Today, mudstones of this time interval are found on the s...
Two shallow cores drilled in northern Wollaston Forland, North-East Greenland, provide a combined section covering the upper Kimmeridgian (Upper Jurassic) – Barremian (Lower Cretaceous) and comprising the Bernbjerg, Lindemans Bugt, Palnatokes Bjerg and Stratumbjerg Formations. A new lithostratigraphic unit, the Storsletten Member, is defined within...
Two drill cores covering the Upper Jurassic – Lower Cretaceous succession in Wollaston Forland, NE Greenland, offer an exceptional insight into mud-accumulation in an evolving distal fault block. Previous studies have revealed the presence of long-lasting black mudstone accumulation extending through the oxygen-restricted early rift and rift climax...
Two fully cored boreholes, the Rødryggen-1 and the Brorson Halvø-1, were drilled in Wollaston Forland, North-East Greenland, in 2009 and 2010, respectively. The objective was to test the stratigraphic development of the Upper Jurassic – Lower Cretaceous mud-dominated succession in two different settings within the same fault block of a developing h...
“Doming–rifting–spreading” constitute the main phases of classical plate tectonics. The Middle–Upper Jurassic succession of East Greenland is interpreted as reflecting formation, deflation and onlap of a rift dome, similar to contemporaneous rift domes in the North Sea, Denmark and southern Sweden. The succession forms a northwards backstepping and...
The Wandel Sea Basin in North Greenland was part of the epicontinental Boreal Sea in Triassic time. The basin formed the western margin of the northernmost Atlantic elongated sea connecting southwards with basins along the conjugate Greenland—Norwegian margins. A multidisciplinary dataset including sedimentology, biostratigraphy, organic geochemist...
A basinally-isolated breccia–pebbly sandstone couplet occurs in the axial part of the latest Jurassic rift-climax halfgraben in Wollaston Forland, East Greenland. Synrift breccias are otherwise restricted to a narrow zone along the scarp of the basin-margin Dombjerg Fault. Towards the north the Dombjerg Fault sidesteps en echelon towards the east w...
Since 1976 more than 25,000 Arctic sediment samples have been processed for their palynological, nannofossil, or microfossil content at the Geological Survey of Greenland (GGU) and the Geological Survey of Denmark (DGU); both institutes are now merged into the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland (GEUS). The samples represent nearly all ages...
The Upper Jurassic – Lower Cretaceous interval represents a prolonged marine deoxygenation period particularly in the Boreal–Arctic basins, the controlling factors of which remain poorly understood. Two drill cores totaling >450 m cover the Kimmeridgian–Barremian succession in contrasting locations in an evolving half-graben system (basin center an...
During the Middle and Late Jurassic, Europe and the Boreal regions formed a network of semi-restricted, relatively shallow marine basins. Consequently, stable oxygen (δ¹⁸O) and carbon (δ¹³C) isotope records from belemnites were strongly influenced by changes in palaeoceanography and climate. New data from eastern Greenland, which formed the western...
Vertebral centra are some of the most common fossils from ichthyosaurs and thus valuable for understanding these marine reptiles. This study sets out to provide further information on the dimensional ratios of centra and how these might be used to obtain more information about an assemblage of Late Jurassic disarticulated centra found at Kingofjeld...
A cored section (North Jens-1) in the Danish Central Graben spans the ‘Base Cretaceous Unconformity’ (BCU) in a seismically conformable situation in a basin-centre setting. Multidisciplinary analysis of the core revealed that the apparent simplicity of the boundary in seismic profiles at this location disguises a complex, dynamic geological history...
The Devonian to lower Eocene Central-East and NE Greenland Composite Tectono-Sedimentary Element CTSE) is a part of the North-East Atlantic rift system. East and NE Greenland geology is therefore analogues to that of the prolific basins on the conjugate Atlantic margin and in the North Sea in many respects. None the less, hydrocarbon discoveries re...
The paleoenvironmental and paleogeographic development of the Norwegian–Greenland seaway remains poorly understood, despite its importance for the oceanographic and climatic conditions of the Paleocene–Eocene greenhouse world. Here we present analyses of the sedimentological and paleontological characteristics of Paleocene–Eocene deposits (between...
Permian to Triassic outcrops in East Greenland diminish significantly northwards. Understanding the northward extent, and nature, of the Permian and Triassic successions has implications for regional palaeogeographic reconstructions and exploration in adjacent offshore basins. Examining the structural relationships between the basement, Permian, Tr...
The East Greenland Rift Basin comprises a series of Jurassic subbasins with different crustal configurations, and somewhat different tectonic histories and styles. The roughly N–S elongated basin is exposed in central and northern East Greenland over a length of more than 600 km and a width of up to 250 km. The southernmost exposures are found in t...
The groundwork for the northeast Atlantic opening was laid during the latest Jurassic to mid-Cenozoic. The period is well-investigated on the Norwegian and UK continental margins at which the tremendous petroleum potential to a large extent resulted from the latest Jurassic to mid-Cenozoic development. Harsh ice conditions have made investigations...
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...
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 geochemical character of detrital mineral grains carries information that can be used to track sediment generation and transport within the broader context of basin development and crustal evolution. Many provenance studies focus on single minerals, which, as a consequence of different source fertility, survivorship and sediment sample represen...
New data on the Lower Cretaceous Falskebugt Member (Palnatokes Bjerg Formation) and Stratumbjerg Formation in easternmost Wollaston Forland, northern East Greenland, are interpreted here. The type locality of the Falskebugt Member on the north-west corner of the Falkebjerg ridge has been revisited, and additional new good exposures were found in a...
Late Jurassic – Early Cretaceous global carbon-cycle dynamics have mainly been inferred from Tethyan, Atlantic and Pacific carbon-isotope (δ13C) records. These records indicate a steady deceleration of the carbon cycle in Late Jurassic and Jurassic–Cretaceous (J–K) boundary times followed by a major mid-Valanginian carbon-cycle perturbation demarca...
Reported ancient bottom current deposits in deep marine settings are scarce and most of them remain contentious. This study describes sedimentological, ichnological and petrographical characteristics of a drill core that covers ca 10 Myr of Upper Cretaceous stratigraphy at Hold with Hope, north‐east Greenland. The core is divided into four facies a...
An updated and revised lithostratigraphic scheme is presented for the Cretaceous of North-East Greenland from Traill Ø in the south to Store Koldewey in the north. The Ryazanian to lower Maastrichtian succession is up to several kilometres thick and comprises four groups, 12 formations and 18 members. The groups record the tectonic evolution of the...
The Cenomanian Turonian transition includes the youngest of the two so-called Cretaceous Oceanic Anoxic Events, sometimes also referred to as the “Bonarelli Event”. This is an interval of global deposition of organic-rich oceanic deposits, including some of the most prolific petroleum source rocks of the World. However, in the greater North Atlanti...
In order to improve the understanding of how the high northern latitudes responded to the escalating warming which led to the middle Cretaceous super greenhouse climate more temperature proxy records from the High Arctic are needed. One of the current obstacles in obtaining such records is poor age control on the Lower Cretaceous strata in the Bore...
Supplementary material to Śliwińska, K., Jelby, M., Grundvåg, S., Nøhr-Hansen, H., Alsen, P., & Olaussen, S. (n.d.). Dinocyst stratigraphy of the Valanginian–Aptian Rurikfjellet and Helvetiafjellet formations on Spitsbergen, Arctic Norway. Geological Magazine, 1-22.
A palynostratigraphic zonation is for the first time established for the entire Cretaceous succession in NE Greenland from Traill Ø in the south to Store Koldewey in the north (72–76.5° N). The zonation is based on samples from three cores and more than 100 outcrop sections. The zonation is calibrated to an updated ammonite zonation from the area a...
The Wandel Sea Basin in eastern North Greenland forms the northern continuation of the offshore Danmarkshavn Basin and the conjugate margin to the western Barents Shelf south of Spitsbergen. The Triassic succession of eastern North Greenland, up to 700 m thick, spans the Induan (Dienerian)-Norian. The Triassic sediments rest unconformably on Upper...
The original description of the large and characteristic belemnite species Arctoteuthis bluethgeni Doyle was based on fragmentary material from a relatively uncertain stratigraphic interval in Kong Karls Land, Svalbard. Recent collection of a belemnite assemblage in the Lower Cretaceous Rurikfjellet Formation on Spitsbergen include numerous complet...
Since 2009 the Berriasian Working Group (ISCS, ICS) has been searching for the best sequence globally to represent the Tithonian/Berriasian (Jurassic/Cretaceous) boundary. To take this forward, it has made field assessments of more than sixty localities, documenting their sequences, fossil biotas and magnetostratigraphy. Only on such a sound factua...
Smithian–lower Anisian strata in Peary Land, North Greenland, were deposited at ∼45° N on the northern margin of Pangaea in offshore to upper shoreface settings. The well-constrained succession (palynology and ammonite biostratigraphy) documents a remarkable shift from lycophyte spore-dominated assemblages in the upper Smithian to gymnosperm pollen...
Knowledge about marine reptile diversity and disparity during the Late Jurassic is increasing. This contribution describes marine reptile skeletal elements (ichthyosaur and plesiosaur) from Kingofjeld mountain in NE Greenland. The assemblage is early Late Oxfordian (Late Jurassic) in age, and consists of c . 100 disarticulated skeletal elements. Th...
New belemnite finds from the Lower Cretaceous (Berriasian – Hauterivian) of Arctic Canada and North-East Greenland provide insight into the spatial distribution patterns of belemnites at northern high latitudes. The belemnite faunas of both areas can be attributed to the Boreal-Arctic Province of the Boreal Realm. The stratigraphic patchyness of th...
The generally warm Cretaceous (c. 145-66 Ma) climate culminated in the mid Cretaceous Hot Greenhouse climate (95-85 Ma). Another characteristic feature of the Cretaceous period is a high number of Oceanic Anoxic Events (OAE) related with major carbon cycle perturbations. While the Lower Cretaceous successions from equatorial region and middle latit...
We congratulate Rakociński et al. (2018) on a thorough and interesting study of the uppermost Jurassic and Lower Cretaceous strata of central Spitsbergen. Their work is a welcome addition to our knowledge on this enigmatic transitional interval in Svalbard. However, we are of the opinion that their assignment of their CA section to the Rurikfjellet...
The Devonian to lower Eocene NE and central East Greenland Rifted Tectono-Sedimentary Element (TSE) is part of the North Atlantic rift system. East and NE Greenland geology is therefore analogues to that of the prolific basins on the conjugated Atlantic margin and in the North Sea in many respects. None the less, hydrocarbon discoveries remain. The...
The Jurassic–Cretaceous transition in the Boreal Realm forms a stratigraphically enigmatic interval, primarily due to the lack of a unified chronostratigraphic scheme across the systems boundary. In the Tethyan Realm, numerous Upper Jurassic – Lower Cretaceous sections have been correlated by use of well-documented carbon isotope (δ13C) excursions...
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...
The Hareelv Formation in the Blokelv-1 core is biostratigraphically subdivided by means of ammonite and dinoflagellate cyst stratigraphy. The succession ranges from the Oxfordian C. densiplicatum Chronozone to the Volgian P. elegans Chronozone. The mudstones of the Blokelv-1 core are characterised by large amounts of amorphous organic matter. This...
Data from the recently drilled, fully cored Blokelv-1 borehole and previous cored boreholes in the Upper Jurassic of Jameson Land, central East Greenland, are integrated with published field studies to address the depositional evolution of the Jameson Land Basin in the Oxfordian–Volgian. In Jameson Land, the succession represents a marine shelf-to-...
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...
This study becomes the first author’s Master Thesis and the aims are to use the isotope values from collected bulk rock samples and from pristine fossils to reconstruct climate and environmental fluctuations during the Late Toarcian–Bajocian of the Middle European epicontinental Swabo-Franconian and Paris basins, the French Subalpine Basin and the...
This study becomes the first author’s Master Thesis and the aims are to use the isotope values from collected bulk rock samples and from pristine fossils to reconstruct climate and environmental fluctuations during the Late Toarcian–Bajocian of the Middle European epicontinental Swabo-Franconian and Paris basins, the French Subalpine Basin and the...
Fault-scarp related fan deltas developed in tilted half grabens in NE Greenland during late Jurassic—early Cretaceous rifting. This study documents ichnological and sedimentological characteristics of the Lower Cretaceous interval of a submarine fan-delta succession (Palnatokes Bjerg Formation, Wollaston Forland), which represents a time of waning...
The Lower Cretaceous (Valanginian–Hauterivian) Rurikfjellet Formation in Spitsbergen, Svalbard, forms an up to c. 300 m thick succession of fine-grained shelf and lower shoreface shales, siltstones and sandstones (Dypvik et al. 1991). The formation constitutes the regressive part of an >1000 m thick first-order sequence which formed during a long-t...
An ammonite-rich horizon was discovered in an otherwise rather unfossiliferous Albian succession in Kilen, North Greenland. It contains an assemblage with both gastroplitinid representatives of the Arctic Province and hoplitinid representatives of the European Province. Correlation between those provinces has been hampered by very little faunal ove...
Kilen in Kronprins Christian Land in eastern North Greenland provides a rare opportunity to study Late Cretaceous faunas at high northern latitudes. A well-preserved fauna discovered in concretions includes a rich assemblage of small kossmaticeratid ammonites, which represent a new species, Kossmaticeras (Kossmaticeras) kilenensis sp. nov.
Palyno-biostratigraphical studies of upper Albian-Lower Cenomanian successions from East Greenland, the south-western Barents Sea and south-eastern England have revealed new dinoflagellate cyst taxa of clear or questioned ovoidinioid affinities. This paper describes the new genus Sindridinium, four new species – Ovoidinium epelidosphaeroides sp. no...
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...
Understanding the end-Triassic mass extinction event (201.36 Ma) requires a clear insight into the stratigraphy of boundary sections, which allows for long-distance correlations and correct distinction of the sequence of events. However, even after the ratification of a Global Stratotype Section and Point, global correlations of TJB successions are...
Thick successions of marine Middle Jurassic deposits rich in ammonites occur in the Jameson Land Basin in central East Greenland. The fauna of the so-called Cranocephalites beds of this basin, comprising the Borealis–Pompeckji Standard Zones, was until now largely represented by a single collection. This was made by T.M. Harris during a 1927 excurs...
A new Cranocephalites species, C. tvaerdalensis sp. nov., is described. Its type locality is a restricted
outcrop of the Pelion Formation in Tværdal on Geographical Society Ø, North-East Greenland.
It belongs to the C. carlsbergensis group and has its type horizon in the upper Bajocian (Middle Jurassic)
Pompeckji Zone.
The reconstruction of past climates and oceanography requires a solid stratigraphic framework ideally applicable
on a global scale. The earliest Cretaceous, however, was a time of strong faunal provincialism, making supraregional
correlation of biostratigraphical zonations difficult. The step-by-step correlations between neighbouring
provinces/subp...
The deadline for applications to the first licence round for petroleum exploration offshore North-East Greenland was 15 December 2012. The round was restricted, allowing only members of the KANUMAS consortium to be operators (BP, Chevron, Exxon, JOGMEG, Shell and Statoil). Nunaoil is also part of KANUMAS, but it is a carried, non-operator partner....
The Middle Jurassic Pelion Formation shallow marine and deltaic sandstone unit deposited in a backstepping shelf is widely accepted as an excellent onshore analogue to hydrocarbon reservoir units on the conjugate Norwegian margin. The formation has accordingly been subject to intense studies particularly in the extensive outcrop area of the Jameson...
Lower Cretaceous sediments from the Wollaston Forland-Kuhn O area in North-East Greenland have been analyzed for stable carbon isotopes, total organic carbon (TOC) content, and major and trace elements, aiming at a lithological characterization and reconstruction of the depositional environments. The marine sediments of Ryazanian-Barremian age were...
Important sedimentological and stratigraphic studies of the Jurassic–Cretaceous successions of North-East Greenland were undertaken by Surlyk et al. (1973), Surlyk & Clemmensen (1975a,b) and Surlyk (1978, 1984, 2003). Nøhr-Hansen (1993) examined the dinoflagellate cyst stratigraphy of Early Cretaceous successions. Alsen & Rawson (2005) and Alsen (2...
Reconstructions of the palaeoclimate of the Early Cretaceous are controversial, varying from a warm-temperate greenhouse world to icehouse conditions. We studied calcareous nannofossil assemblages of sediments from North-East Greenland (Wollaston Forland and Kuhn Ø) of Late Ryazanian-Barremian age in order to better understand the palaeoclimate and...
Calcareous nannofossils of Lower Cretaceous sediments from four sections of the Wollaston Forland and Kuhn Ø, North-East Greenland, have been examined. Sediments of Ryazanian–Hauterivian age were deposited in North-East Greenland following a major Late Jurassic–earliest Cretaceous rifting event. The upper Ryazanian–Hauterivian marine post-rift sedi...
Scattered occurrences of Palaeogene sediments are found in North-East Greenland, where they overlie unconformably Cretaceous sediments and are capped by Palaeogene basalts. These sediments have received little attention (Watt 1994), except for relatively recent studies (Nøhr-Hansen & Piasecki 2002; Jolley & Whitham 2004; Larsen et al. 2005; Heilman...
Recent field work in Lower Cretaceous successions of Traill Ø and Wollaston Forland, North-East Greenland, have resulted in c. 2350 belemnite guards collected bed-by-bed from the upper Ryazanian – Hauterivian. The most common belemnite genera observed, Acroteuthis, Pachyteuthis, and Cylindroteuthis are of boreal-arctic affinities and closely relate...
The Late Ryazanian - Early Hauterivian ammonite fauna of North-East Greenland is unusually rich, diverse, and dominated by Boreal polyptychitids but also contains a significant number of Tethyan taxa. The fauna is best known from highly fossiliferous localities on Traill 0, but only a small part of the fauna was described more than 50 years ago. Th...
Augmentation and revision of the relatively diverse Valanginian brachiopod faunas from North- East Greenland confirm the existence of two mutually exclusive but broadly coeval assemblages, associated with two contrasting facies types. A Boreal, relatively shallow-water assemblage domi- nated by large terebratulids and ribbed rhynchonellids, includi...
Delphinites (Family Neocomitidae, Subfamily Platylenticeratinae) is described from Traill Ø and Wollaston Forland in North-East Greenland, where it is represented by two new species of the subgenus Pseudogarnieria: Delphinites (Pseudogarnieria) christenseni n.sp. and Delphinites (Pseudogarnieria) donovani n. sp. The material indicates the presence...
Middle-Late Jurassic rifting in East Greenland was marked by westwards tilting of wide fault blocks bounded by major N-S-trending east-dipping synthetic faults. The syn-rift successions thicken westwards towards the faults and shallow marine sandstones show mainly southwards axial transport directions. An exception to this general pattern is found...
A Middle – lower Upper Jurassic sandstone-dominated succession, more than 550 m thick, with mudstone intercalations in the middle part is exposed in Bjørnedal on Traill Ø, East Greenland. A number of ammonite assemblages have been found mainly in the mudstones. They indicate the presence of the Lower Callovian Apertum and Nordenskjoeldi Zones. The...
