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Greenland Ruby

GREENLAND RUBY

When European scientists first arrived in Greenland over 200 years ago to study the geology, they encountered native Inuit (“eskimo”) people who were already familiar with the red gemstone variety of the mineral corundum, known as ruby (Giesecke, 1833).

The native inhabitants continued to assist the European explorers with their ruby exploration, leading them to some half dozen locations, spread out for over a hundred miles along the southwest shores of Greenland, known as the Kitaa Coast (Boggild, 1953).

Ruby and sapphire are the red and blue gemstone varieties of corundum (Al2O3). Ruby is colored red by the presence of minute amounts of the element chromium, whereas sapphire is normally blue due to the presence of minute quantities of the elements iron and titanium (Hughes, 1997).

Discovery
In 1966, gem-quality ruby was finally discovered in outcrop on what became known as Ruby Island by Dr. Martin Ghisler, with the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland (GEUS). Ghisler’s scouts and support staff drew heavily from the native population of the nearby village of Fiskenaesset. The exploration team discovered ruby in association with the minerals sapphirine, kornerupine, pargasite, and phlogopite, confirming six ruby deposits in the Fiskenaesset district (Petersen and Secher, 1993).

During the 1970’s, a succession of junior Canadian mining companies, among them Platinomino, Fiscannex, and Valhalla, explored the region for chromite and platinum and attempted, unsuccessfully, to commercialize the ruby occurrences near Fiskenaesset (Geisler, 1983).

Peter Appel (1995) with the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland, published a comprehensive review of the six ruby deposits then known in the Fiskenaesset district and recognized sufficient potential to encourage further exploration. Based on his recommendations, two independent geologists named Bill Brereton and Bill Anderson consolidated the land holdings at Fiskenaesset (Anderson, 1995).

Exploration
In 2004, William Rohtert identified the Greenland Ruby as the most important colored gemstone occurrence in the entire Arctic while working on behalf of True North Gems, Inc., a small Canadian exploration company established to search for diamonds and gemstones at high northern latitudes. True North acquired the Fiskenaesset property from Brereton and Anderson. The company was motivated by the success of their competitors in the Canadian diamond fields beginning in 1991 (www.truenorthgems.com).

Rohtert hired local Inuit from Fiskenaesset and Nuuk, the capitol of Greenland, to help explore the district and, over the course of the next three years, his team increased the number of ruby occurrences known from six to twenty nine. They bulk sampled the main deposits and demonstrated the economic potential for a ruby mine (Rohtert and Ritchie, 2006). Long before True North arrived, virtually every home in the village of Fiskenaesset (population 250) had ruby in it, and many of the local people were involved in a cottage industry making ruby jewelry and mounting collector specimens.

True North changed management in 2007 and began to drill a ruby deposit in the Fiskenaesset district at a place called Aappaluttoq Ridge. The new group changed company policy and discouraged the villagers from Fiskenaesset, as well as Inuit from elsewhere in Greenland, from coming onto their property, even though the Greenlanders had the right of mineral access under “Section 32” of the country’s Mineral Resources Act administerd by the Bureau of Minerals and Petroleum (www.bmp.gl). Section 32 confirmed Inuit tradition established over centuries which guaranteed the native people their right of access to the land to hunt and fish and prospect for minerals.

Mining Rights
For generations, the Greenlanders had been supplying their friends and family, as well as the gift shops serving international tourists visiting the island, with ruby and ruby jewelry hand mined from Fiskenaesset. Under the “One Handful” rule, every visitor had the right to take one handful of rocks or mineral specimens home as a souvenir of their trip to Greenland.

On 16 August 2007, a Greenlander named Niels Madsen and his friends went to Aappaluttoq Ridge to prospect for ruby. True North called the government to protest and the Greenland Police arrived by helicopter to detain and expel Madsen’s group. The Bureau of Minerals and Petroleum (BMP) then forbade these Greenlanders from prospecting for any mineral any where in their country. In protest of the violation of their heritage, concerned citizens formed the “16 August Union” to support the peoples traditional and constitutional rights to the land, and to ensure that Inuit will continue to have the opportunity to benefit from ruby on Greenland, known as “Kalaallit Nunaat” in the local dialect of Inuktitut.

Recent Politics
This summer, the 16 August Union generated a paper and electronic email petition in support of their cause (http://www.sten.underskrifter.dk/)  They obtained over 2600 signatures from a country with only 57,000 people, about 4.5% of the population. Another 750 people internationally signed over the internet. As of September 2008, the Greenland Parliament is now debating the rights of the native people under Section 32, versus a new proposal by the BMP that would require Greenlanders to follow the same rules and regulations of a large, well-financed, multi-national corporation. The 16 August Union contends that the natives cannot afford the high cost and the new burdens, and claim that BMP’s actions amount to an economic Apartheid, where the government favors foreign mining interests over the historic rights of the Inuit people.

News

 * BBC: Country profile