Forested Arctic: Evidence from North Greenland

Shallow-water marine sediments of the Kap Kabenhavn Formation at lat 82°30′ N, Perry Land, North Greenland, contain an abundance of well-preserved remains of terrestrial vegetation and invertebrate fauna indicative of a mosaic of forest tundra environments having similarities to present conditions in Labrador. The presence of foraminifera faunas, marine molluscs, and one mammal species (supported by studies of paleomagnetism and amino acid diagenesis) suggests an age of ∼2 Ma, at the Pliocene-Pleistocene transition. At this time, the arctic tree line was located 2500 km to the north of its present position in the northwest Atlantic region, and forest tundra vegetation existed in lowland areas bordering on an Arctic Ocean without perennial sea-ice cover.