Greenland SeaArticle Free Pass Greenland Sea, Danish and
Norwegian GrØnlandshavet, outlying portion of the Arctic Ocean,
with an area of 465,000 square miles (1,205,000 square km). It
lies south of the Arctic Basin proper and borders Greenland
(west), Svalbard (east), the main Arctic Ocean (north), and the
Norwegian Sea and Iceland (south). Average depth is 4,750 feet
(1,450 m), with the deepest recorded point at 16,000 feet (4,800
m). A line linking northeast Iceland, the isolated island of Jan
Mayen, and Bear Island (Bjørnøya) forms the conventional border
between the Arctic Greenland Sea and the Norwegian Sea to the
southeast. The line also marks significant underwater ridges and
indicates the average edge of Arctic ice. The first scientific
investigations of the region were carried out in 1876–78.
Norwegian, Icelandic, and Soviet vessels, among others, have
since carried scientific expeditions into the area. In 1909
Fridtjof Nansen helped detail the complex current system, and
his scheme was updated by la