Iceberg off Greenland (symbol image)
Photo: AP
The supposedly northernmost island in the world is actually an iceberg.
This is what scientists from Denmark and Switzerland found out, who examined the island discovered last year, along with other islets north of Greenland.
It was discovered that there was water under the "islands" and that these were actually flat icebergs.
On the surface they are covered by earth and gravel, the researcher Rene Forsberg told the Danish science medium "Videnskab.dk" this week.
Forsberg confirmed the information to the dpa news agency.
All island positions that have been reported since 1978 have been visited - it has all become clear that they cannot be islands.
800 meters north of the northernmost tip of land
Scientists and explorers have been searching for new islands in an area north of Greenland for a long time.
A Swiss-Danish research team made a special discovery just over a year ago: they named the island, which is about 30 by 60 meters in size, Qeqertaq Avannarleq, which means something like “the northernmost island”.
It was about 800 meters north of the island of Oodaaq, which was discovered in 1978 at the northernmost tip of Greenland and was previously considered the piece of land closest to the North Pole.
But the researchers now determined that Oodaaq could not be called an island either.
According to this, another island called Inuit Qeqertaat with a position of 83°39'55"N, 30°37'45"W is now the northernmost one on earth.
lmd/dpa
