Project Iceworm

Project Iceworm was a top secret United States Army program of the Cold War, which aimed to build a network of mobile nuclear missile launch sites under the Greenland ice sheet.

To study the feasibility of working under the ice, a highly publicized "cover" project, known as Camp Century, was launched in 1959.

Details of the missile base project were secret for decades, but first came to light in January 1995 during an enquiry by the Danish Foreign Policy Institute (DUPI) into the history of the use and storage of nuclear weapons in Greenland.

[3] To test the feasibility of construction techniques a project site called Camp Century was started by the United States military in 1959, located at an elevation of 6,600 feet (2,000 m) in Northwestern Greenland, 150 miles (240 km) from the American Thule Air Base.

[10] Although the Greenland icecap appears, on its surface, to be hard and immobile, snow and ice are viscoelastic materials, which slowly deform over time, depending on temperature and density.

This spreading movement, over a year, causes tunnels and trenches to narrow, as their walls deform and bulge, eventually leading to a collapse of the ceiling.

A 2016 study found that the portion of the ice sheet covering Camp Century will start to melt by 2100, if current trends continue.

[12] When the ice melts, the camp's infrastructure, as well as remaining biological, chemical and radioactive waste, will re-enter the environment and potentially disrupt nearby ecosystems.