Nordfjord (Greenland)

Nordfjord is a fjord in the NE Greenland National Park area, East Greenland.

This article is about the fjord in Greenland. For the district in Norway, see Nordfjord.
Nordfjord
View of the Nordfjord with the calving end of the Waltershausen Glacier
Nordfjord
Location within Greenland
LocationNE Greenland
Coordinates73°40′N 24°15′W
Ocean/sea sourcesKaiser Franz Joseph Fjord
Greenland Sea
Basin countriesGreenland
Max. length60 kilometres (37 mi)
Max. width13.3 kilometres (8.3 mi)
Average depth49 metres (161 ft)

The fjord was named in 1899 by Swedish Arctic explorer A.G. Nathorst during the expedition he led to Greenland. In 1931 a scientific station known as Nordfjordhuset was built on the western shore of the fjord at the time of the 1931–34 Treårsekspeditionen.[1]

Geography

The Nordfjord is a wide fjord part of the Kaiser Franz Joseph Fjord system. It is located between Strindberg Land and the Gauss Peninsula and has the large Waltershausen Glacier at its head. To the south the fjord opens into the northern shore of the Kaiser Franz Joseph Fjord —about 64 km from the Foster Bay of the Greenland Sea— where it reaches a width of 13.3 km with depths between 18 and 49 m.[2]

The Brogetdalen, known as "multicolored valley" owing to the different colours of the mountains surrounding it, is a large valley in Strindberg Land that drains east to the Nordfjord. A river enters the fjord 16 km north of the entrance through the Muskox Fjord (Moskusokse Fjord), a long tributary fjord or arm that enters Nordfjord from its eastern shore close to the head.[3] Cape Ovibos is the headland at the western side of the entrance.[2]

Map of Northeastern Greenland

See also

Bibliography
  • Ingrid Leirvik Olsen, Sedimentary processes and paleoenvironments in Moskusoksefjord and Nordfjord, North-East Greenland, The Arctic University of Norway, Tromsø, 15 May 2015

References
  1. "Catalogue of place names in northern East Greenland". Geological Survey of Denmark. Retrieved 21 April 2016.
  2. Prostar Sailing Directions 2005 Greenland and Iceland Enroute, p. 120
  3. "Nordfjord". Mapcarta. Retrieved 20 April 2016.
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