Scientists have found a small island off the coast of Greenland that's apparently been revealed by shifting pack ice.
According to Reuters, the newly discovered island may turn out to be the northernmost point of land in the world.
"It was not our intention to discover a new island," said Morten Rasch, polar explorer and head of the Arctic Station research facility in Greenland. "We just went there to collect samples."
As they stumbled upon the piece of land in question last month – measuring about 30 metres across – the scientists initially thought it was Oodaaq, an island found in 1978 by a Danish survey team. However, they later realised that the island they found is located about 780 metres northwest.
"It's a bit like explorers in the past, who thought they'd landed in a certain place but actually found a totally different place," remarked Swiss entrepreneur Christiane Leister, creator of the Leister Foundation that financed the expedition.
Rene Forsberg, head of geodynamics at Denmark's National Space Institute and advisor to the Danish government, said that this discovery is unlikely to change the country’s territorial claim to the north of Greenland, the media outlet notes.
"These small island come and go," he said.