Document generated on 09/26/2021 12:28 p.m. Geoscience Canada Journal of the Geological Association of Canada Journal de l’Association Géologique du Canada The Tooth of Time Lauge Koch’s Last Lecture Paul F. Hoffman Volume 40, Number 4, 2013 URI: https://id.erudit.org/iderudit/1021065ar See table of contents Publisher(s) The Geological Association of Canada ISSN 0315-0941 (print) 1911-4850 (digital) Explore this journal Cite this document Hoffman, P. F. (2013). The Tooth of Time: Lauge Koch’s Last Lecture. Geoscience Canada, 40(4), 242–255. All Rights Reserved © The Geological Association of Canada, 2013 This document is protected by copyright law. Use of the services of Érudit (including reproduction) is subject to its terms and conditions, which can be viewed online. https://apropos.erudit.org/en/users/policy-on-use/ This article is disseminated and preserved by Érudit. Érudit is a non-profit inter-university consortium of the Université de Montréal, Université Laval, and the Université du Québec à Montréal. Its mission is to promote and disseminate research. https://www.erudit.org/en/ 242 COLUMN The Tooth of Time: Supported by the Greenland Ministry his imagination was fired by the ill- of the Danish government, independ- fated 1906–08 Danmark Expedition Lauge Koch’s Last Lecture ent of the federal Geological Survey, (Hansen 2005), during which his Koch’s East Greenland expeditions ‘uncle’ (actually a more distant relative) Paul F. Hoffman continued for twenty-three field sea- Captain J. P. (Johan Peter) Koch and 1216 Montrose Ave. sons until 1958 (Koch 1961), culminat- two companions dog-sledded over Victoria, BC, Canada, V8T 2K4 ing after his death with tectonic and 2000 km from Danmarkshavn to Cape geological maps of East Greenland Bridgman on the north coast of The Danish Greenland cartographer (Haller 1970; Koch and Haller 1971) Greenland, previously reached only and geologist Lauge Koch (1892–1964) and the magnificent book, Geology of from the west (Fig. 1). Lauge Koch had was a legend at the time of his last the East Greenland Caledonides (Haller his first taste of Greenland in 1913 as public appearance, in Hamilton Hall at 1971). Koch was lionized international- an apprentice to Morten P. Porsild, a McMaster University in March 1964. ly—he received medals, national hon- Danish botanist who spent most of his Before he was 30 years old, he had ours and honourary degrees in eight adult life based at a research station he charted the entire coastline of North foreign countries and was venerated at founded at Qeqertarsuaq (Godhavn), Greenland by dogsled (19 sheets at 1:300K scale) and had described the Yale, Harvard, Columbia and McGill on Disko Island in central West Green- essential features of its geologic struc- universities (Müller 1964; Dunbar land. As a 21-year-old, Koch’s interests ture and stratigraphy (Haller 1971; 1966)—but in Denmark he was a con- had been split between geology and Dawes 1976; Dawes and Haller 1979). troversial figure whose failure to make ornithology, but under the knowledge- This was made possible by opportuni- alliances with parties who were other- able Porsild his assigned task to collect ties arising from threats to Danish sov- wise bound to oppose him led to a Tertiary plant fossils evolved into a ereignty over North Greenland by the damaging court case in the mid-1930’s flair for mapping and a desire to inves- United States prior to 1917, when the (Ries 2002) and the premature termina- tigate the glaciology and geology of American claim based on Robert E. tion of his East Greenland mapping- the unexplored north coast of Green- Peary’s 1891–1909 expeditions was based research program in 1958 land (Dawes 2012). Late in the season, relinquished as part of a deal whereby (Dawes 2012). Koch was 71 years old he actually met J. P. Koch and meteor- they acquired the Virgin Islands, for- and struggling to complete a treatise ologist-glaciologist Alfred Wegener at merly Danish West Indies. In 1926, on the Precambrian geology of Green- Godhavn. They were headed south Koch shifted his activities to East land and North America when, in Feb- after crossing the Inland Ice at its Greenland, where a providential Nor- ruary 1964, he embarked on a six- widest part, having spent the previous wegian challenge to Danish sovereignty month lecture and study tour spon- winter on the ice near Danmarkshavn. in 1931 enabled him to establish a sored by the American Geological Before arriving in Greenland, the 33- large, international, multidisciplinary Institute and the Carlsberg Foundation. year-old Wegener had submitted the research and mapping program, utiliz- Some may read this who were present fuller version of his newly-developed ing ship-based float planes and flying at Koch’s last lecture, in Hamilton Hall, theory of continental displacement to boats for systematic aerial photogra- but after nearly fifty years their recol- Petermann’s Geographical Journal (Jacoby phy, support of land parties, and navi- lection will have faded while mine has 2001). Koch, who had brought along gation through sea ice. Oskar Kulling, not. the published version to read, present- a member of Koch’s 1929 expedition, Svend Lauge Koch was born ed it to the delighted Wegener who did discovered Devonian vertebrate assem- in Copenhagen in 1892, the first sur- not even know it had been accepted blages sensationally containing the ear- viving child of parents already in their (Dawes 2012). liest known tetrapod, Ichthyostega (Jarvik thirties, the father a clergyman and The west side of Greenland, 1961; Clack 2002; Larsen et al. 2008). author (Dawes 2012). As a teenager, although home to the largest icebergs Geoscience Canada, v. 40, http://dx.doi.org/10.12789/geocanj.2013.40.018 © 2013 GAC/AGC® GEOSCIENCE CANADA Volume 40 2013 243 be enormously thick, giving rise to giant icebergs (Rink 1853). Rink’s lec- ture at the Royal Geographical Society (London) on the origin of giant ice- bergs caught the attention of Charles Lyell, who had long argued that the action of icebergs and sea ice alone could account for the enigmatic land- forms and till deposits of Pleistocene (‘Newer Pliocene’) age (Boylan 1998). I suspect that it was Rink’s assertion that giant icebergs were a product of the Inland Ice that caused Lyell in his last publications (Lyell 1863, 1865) to soft- en his opposition to the former exis- tence of such ice sheets over northern Europe and North America (Agassiz 1842). The head of Baffin Bay was explored and the channel between Ellesmere Island and Greenland revealed in stages by Edward Inglefield (Royal Navy, 1852), Elisha Kent Kane (American civilian, 1853–55), Charles Francis Hall (American civilian, 1871–73) and George S. Nares (Royal Navy, 1875–76). In 1882, two members of the Greely (United States Army) Expedition, James B. Lockwood and David L. Brainard, sledged on sea ice from Ellesmere Island along the north coast of Greenland to 40°W longitude (Lockwood Island), reaching a new ‘farthest north’ at 83°23’08”N (Koch 1940; Hayes 2003). In 1891–92 another American, career Navy officer Robert E. Peary, established a base near Qaanaaq, north of Thule, from which he and Norwegian skier Eivind Astrup Figure 1. GoogleEarth image of Greenland and environs, showing locations men- dog-sledded across the northern ramp tioned in the text, contours of elevation above sea level and routes of early expedi- of the Inland Ice to Navy Cliff at the tions on the Inland Ice including Peary and Astrup 1892, Mikkelsen 1910, Ras- head of Independence Fjord, a 2000 mussen and Freuchen 1912, and J. P. Koch and Wegener 1913, according to Ras- km round-trip (Peary 1893). From mussen (1915). Note that only contours above 1500 m are shown because of steep Navy Cliff (Fig. 2), they could see ice- gradients at the Ice margins. Sea ice is not shown. Arctic sea ice is expelled into free land on the northern skyline Greenland Sea in summer, while Denmark and Davis straits are the principal (Peary Land), which Peary mistakenly source areas of North Atlantic Deep Water. Major fjords and glaciers in North inferred to be a separate island or Greenland: H, Humboldt Glacier; K, J. P. Koch Fjord; L, De Long Fjord; S, Sher- archipelago. ard Osborn Fjord; V, Victoria Fjord. Other locations: IL, Inglefield Land; NC, Peary’s attempts to reach the Navy Cliff. North Pole embarked from the Cana- dian side of Robeson Channel. In outside of Antarctica, is protected ence of mountainous topography was 1900, a year after frostbite required the from the summer flush of Arctic sea first appreciated by H. J. Rink, who amputation of all but the little toes on ice that makes the northeast coast of spent 20 years in West Greenland, first both his feet, Peary along with Greenland all but unserviceable by sea. as a scientist and later as a trade man- Matthew Henson and five Inuit Consequently, West Greenland has ager and administrator. Rink reasoned hunters embarked from Fort Conger long been colonized while East Green- that the vast catchment area drained in (Fig. 1), nearly 700 km north of Thule. land never has, despite its proximity to West Greenland by only a small num- They sledged eastward along the north Europe. The vast extent of Green- ber of narrow outlet ice streams coast of Greenland on the sea ice until land’s ‘inland ice plain’ and its independ- (‘isströmme’) requires the ice streams to finally with one Inuit, Angmalortooq, 244 ished five years earlier. Returning by Is. od way of Independence Fjord, they kwo D Loc N found no evidence of a channel to the LA Y northwest reported by Peary (Fig.