Kaffeklubben Island

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search

Kaffeklubben Island or The Coffee Club Island (Danish: Kaffeklubben Ø; Greenlandic: Inuit Qeqertaat) is a small island lying off the northern tip of Greenland. It is the northernmost point of land on Earth.

Kaffeklubben Island is found at 83°40′N 29°50′W / 83.667°N 29.833°W / 83.667; -29.833Coordinates: 83°40′N 29°50′W / 83.667°N 29.833°W / 83.667; -29.833, and is 713.5 kilometres (443.4 mi) from the geographic North Pole. It is placed north of the Frederick E. Hyde Fjord, about 37 kilometres (23 mi) east of Cape Morris Jesup and west of Cape Bridgman, a little east of a central point along the northern coast of Greenland. Kaffeklubben Island is approximately 1 kilometre (0.6 mi) in length.

The explorer Robert Peary was the first to sight Kaffeklubben

The island was first sighted by the American explorer Robert Peary in 1900, however, Kaffeklubben was not visited until 1921. It was then, when the Danish explorer Lauge Koch set foot on the island, that it received its name, after the coffee club in Copenhagen's museum of mineralogy.

In 1969 a Canadian team calculated that its northernmost tip lies 750 metres (2,450 ft) farther north than Cape Morris Jesup, thus claiming its record as the most northerly point on land.

Since then, several gravel banks have been found to the north, most notably Oodaaq, although there is debate as to whether Oodaaq or these other gravel banks should be considered for the record since they are rarely permanent, being regularly swallowed by the moving ice sheets, shifting, or becoming submerged in the ocean.

Vegetation [edit]

According to the Arctic Thule expedition, vegetation grows on Kaffeklubben island. "During the brief arctic summer, the world’s northernmost flower can be located on the tip of Kaffeklubben island – it is a Purple Saxifrage."[1]

See also [edit]

  • ATOW1996, also claimed as the most northerly land area.
  • 83-42, another potentially northernmost point of land

References [edit]

  1. ^ Kaffeklubben - Top of the World? (accessed 28 Jan 2013)