Geology between Sea and Ice

Over the past weeks, everything in our (Sam and Felix’s) life seemed to revolve around Quaternary Geology. This started with an exceptional field trip to Nordenskiöldbreen, a tidewater glacier at the head of Billefjorden, which has been retreating spectacularly quickly over the last century. Thereby, it revealed a variety of glacial landforms such as flutes, drumlins and a crag and tail that have been incredibly well preserved, as on a geological time scale they are really just infants.

We spent 4 exciting days camping at the foot of the glacier, camping, guarding the camp and seeing lots of wildlife, which Sam will report about…

The fieldwork started with a long walk around the glacier forefield, during which it was hard to tell whether our professor was more interested in the glacial landforms or polar bears. He seemed very torn between these two, especially after he had finally spotted one through his binoculars, on the other side of Billefjorden. After our first glimpse of the study area, we were left in riddles yet excited about the processes behind these landforms we had seen. The next two days we spent rotating around four stations in the glacier forefield, usually finding one answer to the riddles the glacier had left, only to face a dozen new questions.

The following two weeks, we spent visiting Bolterdalen, another study site displaying raised beach deposits near Longyearbyen, and writing a report about one of the stations at each study area. After long hours in the library and on the computer, some of the glacial processes that formed the spectacular landscapes at Nordenskiöldbreen dawned to us. This leaves us excited for our next field trip, a cruise to Kong Karls Land (if the sea ice lets us), in which we will look at the signature glaciers have left on the seabed around Svalbard. 

Outside of our busy UNIS time table we’ve still been managing to have lots of fun. Everyone is starting to feel a little more settled and we’ve figured out where the cheapest pint is. As Felix explained the geology field trip was particularly exciting. Our journey to our field location was amazing aboard a packed tourist boat.
Unlike the return journey the sea was flat calm and the sun was out, allowing the class to see some of the more remote places of Svalbard. Unloading and loading all the fieldwork equipment was a good laugh – like a game of jenga on a rib whilst trying to avoid small icebergs. Unknown to us the wind had whipped up a nice swell over the last night, causing lots of green faces on our way home to Longyearbyen. Being the hardy sailors we are, Felix and I spent a lot of time outside in the bracing arctic wind whilst others huddled below deck. We managed to see a fairly large whale (unsure of the species) as well as puffins, northern fulmars and arctic skuas.
Unfortunately it was this same weather that prevented us from going on our next field trip to the famous Kapp Linne and Isfjord Radio Station – I don’t want to talk about it L. When not editing/ writing our Geology reports in the following weeks we’ve been doing some cool things. The weather has not been great, keeping us at sea level until yesterday where Felix and I hiked over Larsbreen glacier and onto Trollsteinen. Other highlights included seeing around 20 Beluga whales in Adventfjorden, watching a valiant Scottish football performance against Germany, a spot of arctic diving with the Longyearbyen Dykkerklubb and competing in a Quadrathalon. As Felix mentioned we’re currently preparing for a 7 day cruise around Svalbard. Everyone’s really looking forward to the free food aboard the ship. The current record stands at 6kg of weight gained in one week - challenge accepted!