Why is Australia sometimes considered a continent, but Greenland never is? Aren’t they both large islands that could both pass as continents?
In: Planetary Science
Yes Greenland is smaller than Australia…but look at all the folks who want to normalize New Zealand as a submerged continent. It’s pretty small too. The key question is: are their plate boundaries (spreading ridges, transform faults, subduction zones) between Greenland and other plates? I think we have spreading ridges to the east and west of Greenland…really the question is what’s going in north Greenland between it and arctic Canadian islands. It seems like there should be a transform boundary there…in which case it could be argued that it is a separate continent.
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