This article describes how Greenlandic municipalities operate. A summary of the evolution of municipal government in Greenland is followed by an overview of their demography, politics, and administration. A list of jurisdictions is provided through a study of municipal expenditures, with reference to the municipality of Narsaq (Narsap kommunia). The article concludes with an examination of the perspectives of municipal government in Greenland.

An expedition of the Canada/China Dinosaur Project collected several large marine-reptile fossils on western Ellesmere Island in the summer of 1989. They were led to the area by a 1939 report that a large fossil skeleton had been seen north of Trold Fiord by a member of a Royal Canadian Mounted Police patrol in 1926. This paper examines the events of the original discovery and an unsuccessful attempt by David Haig-Thomas to locate the fossils in 1937–38. Haig-Thomas had visited the area in 1935 as a member of the Oxford University Ellesmere Land Expedition. His party had reached a fiord variously identified as Trold Fiord or Vendomc Fiord, but a study of his probable route suggests that it was neither. This inaccurate identification misled Haig-Thomas' later search. In 1989, pieces of fossil bone from a large marine reptile were collected at a site compatible with the 1939 description.

Seabirds were observed during the southward (December 1989) and homeward (March 1990) voyage of the Ninth Indian Expedition to Antarctica. Twenty-four species were observed, with high diversity between 40° and 60° S. A smaller variety of species, but greater numbers, were observed between latitudes 60° and 70° S. The number of species increased in the zone of high primary and secondary production. Many species showed seasonal shifts in distribution.

The formation of the Alaska Eskimo Whaling Commission (AEWC) in 1977 was the first time that Native Alaskans had organized themselves to protect a specific hunting interest. The AEWC's success and prominence has led to the formation of other user-based management regimes for marine mammals in northern Alaska. This paper begins with a description of the creation and development of the AEWC as it fought the ban by the International Whaling Commission (IWC) on bowhead whaling and gained management authority for the Eskimo harvest. Then, three other regimes are examined, each of which focuses on a marine mammal species in northern Alaska. These are the Eskimo Walrus Commission, the Alaska and Inuvialuit Beluga Whale Committee, and the Agreement on Polar Bears in the Southern Beaufort Sea between the Inuvialuit Game Council and the North Slope Borough Fish and Game Management Committee. These regimes face the challenge of avoiding a management crisis rather than overcoming one. Without the incentive of a threat to end hunting, these regimes have not had the sense of direction that has enabled the AEWC to achieve its success. However, they have contributed to the management of certain species of wildlife, and are capable of contributing a great deal more.

Physico-chemical and biological studies during the austral summer of 1986–87 in the ice-edge and a region offshore of Antarctica indicated significant spatial differences in concentrations of nutrients, dissolved oxygen (DO), Ca, Mg, and chlorophyll a, and in the rates of primary production. The waters within the ice-edge region were richer in nutrients and DO and showed a four-fold increase in chlorophyll a(1.98 mg m-3) and a 10-fold increase in primary productivity (0.74 mg C m-3 h-1) as compared with offshore waters. In the ice-edge region, Mg was high (1319 mg kg-1), whereas values of Ca (421.7 mg kg-1) were within the normal range. Offshore Ca (423.8 mg kg-1) and Mg (1297 mg kg-1) were within the expected limits. In the ice-edge region, Ca/Cl varied from 0.0202 to 0.0229, with a mean of 0.0220, and Mg/Cl varied from 0.0637 to 0.0737, with a mean of 0.0687. These figures were slightly higher than those offshore (Ca/Cl: 0.0205 to 0.0224, mean 0.0214; Mg/Cl: 0.0630 to 0.0693, mean 0.0657), indicating the addition of Mg to the waters in the ice-edge region. Nutrients in the ice-edge region showed increasing concentrations at deeper levels irrespective of their relationship with DO, indicating large amounts of preformed nutrients, a characteristic of Antarctic waters attributable to intense upwelling. Chlorophyll a showed a direct relation with primary productivity and an inverse relation with Mg, suggesting the release of Mg from biogenic matter. Offshore, phosphate-phosphorus (PO4-P) was significantly correlated with nitrate-nitrogen (NO3-N) and inversely correlated with primary productivity and chlorophyll a, indicating the utilization of PO4-P during high production. Significantly elevated concentrations of chlorophyll a, primary productivity and Mg, marked by a considerable decrease in nutrients, were observed at a frontal zone between 64° and 62°S.

On the basis of existing data on the dimensions, shape, surficial geology, and glaciological structure of ice island ARLIS-II, used in combination with aerial photographs of northernmost Ellesmere Island taken in 1950 and 1959, the source of the ice island is positively identified as the Alfred Ernest Ice Shelf. The duration of the recent drift of ‘Hobson's Choice’ ice island from the vicinity of the Alfred Ernest Ice Shelf to northern Ellef Ringnes Island, used as a model for the duration of the drift of ARLIS-II between the same points, suggests ARLIS-II broke off the ice shelf in approximately 1955.

The first Finnish expedition to the Antarctic, made in 1988–89, included five men. The second, a year later, included 57, mostly researchers. Accidents that occurred during the expeditions were recorded by a medical doctor and their incidence rate and severity were estimated. The few accidents that occurred did not cause disability. Some 20 risk factors were evaluated from two questionnaires filled out during the journeys to and from Antarctica, using a scale from extremely safe to extremely unsafe. Working conditions were judged safer than had been expected, as were weather factors (wind, temperature, ice and snow circumstances). The most dangerous items identified, in order of importance, were moving along unmarked routes, weariness, unexpected dangers, hurry and tight schedules, and snow and ice. During the homeward journey, equipment for communication and for moving as well as personal equipment were judged more dangerous than had been expected in advance. Preparations for future expeditions should give more attention to these factors.

The mixing characteristics of the existing surface wastewater discharge and a proposed submerged wastewater outfall at McMurdo Station, Antarctica, are compared. The wastewater is a combination of sanitary sewage and brine from a desalination plant. Dispersion from a proposed submerged (15 m-deep) outfall was simulated using the CORMIX1 computer model. The mixing characteristics of the surface discharge were estimated from visual observations and a conceptual analysis. The wastewater was found to be less dense than ambient seawater. From the submerged outfall, the effluent is predicted to be diluted by ratios ranging from 80:1 to 450:1 between the point of discharge and the point where the effluent plume begins to spread out underneath the sea ice. The variation in dilution depends mostly on tidal current speed, and dilution of the wastewater with desalinator brine is predicted to provide only minor reductions in concentrations of the effluent. The heat content of the discharge plume from a submerged outfall is expected to cause at least partial melting of the sea ice from underneath. A surface discharge provides much less mixing with ambient water before the effluent spreads along tidal cracks and underneath the sea ice. The submerged discharge is expected to confine settleable wastewater solids to a benthic area near the outfall, but a surface discharge allows solids to settle over a wider area.