Late solar eclipse special!

Hi guys, Vanessa here!

Even though the solar eclipse was 10 days ago, a small Arctic update is needed.

Last week was rather stressful for us biology people with two presentations and lectures every day (hence the late update).

Currently the weather is horrendous (wind+snow=white-out) and the Easter holidays have started, so I thought an update would be appropriate. Let’s get started…

As you all know the very exciting solar eclipse took place 10 days ago. 

Prior to that spectacular event, Colin flew up to Svalbard to help the biology course with some fieldwork. A small part of the biology course deployed and retrieved a mooring with an AZFP (Acoustic Zooplankton Fish Profiler) attached to it to measure zooplankton activity (DVM) among other things. We also went out on two boat trips to collect zooplankton samples during midday and midnight. 

Connor and I were part of the night group (I snuck my way in just in case there were any bioluminescent organisms, there were none).

Whilst wearing sexy orange rescue suits, we hauled out a zooplankton net several times and towed it for about 5 to 10 mins, and we also made a CTD cast. After collecting all the samples we wanted we made our way back to the harbour and arrived there at about midnight, where we were greeted by Northern lights (what a hard life we have). 

Once back at UNIS, we showered each other down and started preparing the samples for lab work.

Showering after a night at sea

Let’s just say there was a lot of krill. A lot. But there were also some sea angels, copepods, ctenophores, arrow worms and some amphipods. We separated the ctenophores from the rest and measured them. Then the samples were sieved and all the samples were transferred into bottles to be stored for later use. We got back home at around 01.30 (tired and very hungry). Have to say though that Longyearbyen actually looked like a big city when we were out.

Anyone fancy some krill?

Can you spot the arrow worms?

Waiting for the cars and the eclipse

Unfortunately, we were not able to go out during the actual eclipse as Mother Nature had decided to bring us calm and freezing weather, which led to the formation of 11cm thick sea ice. However, the 20^th of March was a beautiful day and thus our lovely module leader Janne took us to her cabin/house out in Adventdalen. There we sat on reindeer skins with hot drinks and biscuits eagerly awaiting the eclipse. The valley was overrun by tourists that had out all sort of high-tech equipment, but luckily we were further up and it was quiet where we were. Excitement among our class was building up rapidly and many of us did not have high expectations, but oh boy. It got darker and darker, the temperature dropped and just wow. We were all blown away. The total eclipse just looked  

A-mazing!!! There were so many ‘wows’ and ‘ohhs’ and ‘ahhhs’ and some sweary words. 

Truly amazing to see! 

But would I pay £10,000 to 20,000 to see it? No, I think I would just watch on TV :).

A part of Adventdalen that was filled with tourists

Scotland! Solar Eclipse!

Waiting for the eclipse

Solar Eclipse

And for the dog lovers among our audience, we got to see Janne's dogs after the eclipse.She even had two super adorable puppies.

The super adorable puppies

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Colesbukta Round 2 - The boys trip

Yummy turmat for lunch

Hello there, Sam here writing from a wind battered Longyearbyen after a big storm came through last night. Recently I've been really busy - not so much with school work but with other equally exciting things.


After a big low pressure system eventually moved away on the 4th of March Felix, a friend and I decided to go for a 4 day ski trip to Colesbukta. As you may remember from one of Lucy's blog entries last semester, Colesbukta is an abandoned mining town between Longyearbyen and Barentsburg. After spending the 4th preparing for the trip, Felix and I set out at 8.45am with a 25km ski tour ahead of us. Felix looked the part with his new gear and skis leaving me feeling a bit outdated. We kept a good pace and made lunch around 1pm. After another km or two Matt (our snowmobile support) arrived having taken the firewood to our destination. After some discussion we all agreed that whilst the last 13km would be just as enjoyable as the previous, it would be best that we would be toed the rest of the way. In no time Felix and I were being pulled along at 40km/h behind the scooter and arriving in Colesbukta in no time. Once we arrived at the cabin we quickly settled in, got the fire going, ate 3 servings worth of mash potato and tinned meat and climbed into bed.

Inside Grumant

After a long sleep we had breakfast and set out to hike along the coast to Grumant (another Russian mining town). It was pretty windy but we made good progress until stopping at the 'end of the line' of the old railway. Along the way we saw hundreds of reindeer and several Arctic Foxes. As the coast was to icy to clamber along we bailed out up a really steep valley. Our resident Tirolian Ski guide Mathias kicked steps up the steep slope whilst I followed tentatively, examining the fresh avalanche scars on the adjacent wall 200m below. Once at the top we crossed over to Grumantdalen where we decided to turn around at about 2pm. The walk back was great made epic by a sweet sunset. In the evening we had some visitors who brought enough beer and wine for all of us resulting in a late night.

Looking South-West towards Barentsburg

After a fairly late start the next day we starting skiing towards Grumant again over the plateau. We quickly passed our turning point and ski'd down the valley to Grumant. I had a few big crashes on the way down and put some fresh cuts into my skis. Whilst Grumant was incredible we didn't stay for long, leaving at 3pm after a  quick explore. The journey back was tough and we arrived back in the dark. Luckily the fire was going strong and the cabin was nice and cosy thanks to the others meaning after some food we were all off to bed pretty early.

Grumant

Cosy cabin

On the last day Felix and I woke up early and began packing and preparing for our long trip home. We left the cabin at 9.30am and set off towards Longyearbyen. It was really tough conditions and challenging terrain but by 3.30pm we were on the familiar plateau and nearing Nybyen. The ski down Tverrdalen was sweet and spat us out just above the barrack. We were both relieved to be home as our feet were worn out and I'd eaten all of my chocy bicies. After the photo below we both hobbled back to our barracks like a pair of OAP's with the disco shakes.

Battered and broken but back in Nybyen!

One last thing - I've made a short video of highlights from the trip, here is a link to the password protected video:

https://vimeo.com/122297815

Password : spitzbergen

Arctic Technology

Lucy here!
So just a little update from me to tell you all about the technology. This week the AT-205 course has been drilling for cores and running a selection of tests. This involved the use of the following machine;

The drill was connected to a compressor (left), which would assist with the drilling of the ground. Of course everything had to be assembled, after very detailed explanation of the individual aspects e.g. the drill;

As this is a technology course, the drill is operated by a computer. This one is designed for this kind of work and is fitted in it's own case;

Once everything was assembled we were ready to begin drilling for our cores, which took a rather  long time and continued with the lovely Arctic weather;

This particular core had an ice lenses, which is what the lecture is pointing to with the screw driver. After two days all the samples had been collected and the lab work began!!! Everything from temperature;

To working out the plastic and liquid limit of the samples;

All in all it was fun week with the  use of cold labs (where we had to wear the same gear as outside) whilst using a machine to run the uni-axial compression test;

 The samples were dries in order to work out their density. Thus, all in all it has been a busy week. So I guess my group and I better go start the write up. But there was enough time for a selfie!

Finally, the sun…

 Vanessa here!

Wow, what a week. We had our workshop with Tavis and long days, which you will here about from some of the others. And it is bright outside!!! Like properly!!! For the majority of the day!!! :D

Our weeks at uni are pretty packed with lectures and one thing that is quite good, presentations. We have to repeatedly give presentations, a way of teaching each other various material rather than having the lecturers doing it. 

Thus, last Thursday we had to hold a presentation about various things related to the benthos. Connor, Sil and I were in a group and put together about what we named 'the new king' of the Barents Sea, the snow crab. Everyone enjoyed it due to a video of 'the deadliest catch' that involved swearing. The day was rounded off with a couple of beers and social activities among the biology class. 

Last Friday was rather eventless for me, but it did involve home-made cake and pizza from Barrack 11 (both super yummy). 

Saturday was the day of the sport competitions against the Russian miners from Barentsburg. The disciplines in which they competed in were table tennis (Sam & Felix), volleyball (Sam & Felix), football (Sam), basketball (Sam), badminton, indoor hockey, chess, and swimming (unless you also count cheering (Connor & I)).

It was a very entertaining and fun day at Svalbardhallen. The day kicked off with several games of table tennis against the Russian miners, one of them being rather old. 

Sam and Felix competed against them and it was quite interesting to watch. The Russians were really passionate about their table tennis and overall beat the others. Sam & Felix did win some games though.

Volleyball immediately followed table tennis and oh boy those games were intense!!! 

Connor and I were cheering and swearing left, right and centre. Some of the student players had insanely strong serves and the overall team work was fantastic. The Russians’ team work crumbled at some points, as they were getting more and more annoyed/angry at each other (but only when they were losing). It was extremely close, but the Longyearbyen team lost by two points in the last round. Everyone was gutted, but determined to kick some Russian butt in March.

BUT, overall Longyearbyen won!!!

Sam and his beautiful table tennis expressions

Felix ready to serve

The old Russian man

Blocking

Sam serving

Football!

 In the evening, the players went out for a free meal, whilst us cheerleaders got together for a dinner of spaghetti carbonara (soooo good). After our meal, we played ‘Stop the bus’, charades and ‘Pictionary’ with two others. Let’s just say we laughed a lot. (Even made a 'Pictionary' game today with Joakim, a guy from my bio course).

On Sunday, we had a big pancake breakfast, as we missed out on pancakes on Shrove Tuesday. After the filling and yummy breakfast, we (minus Felix & Lucy) went up 'Trollsteinen'. The sun has been teasing us for a while now. It is illuminating the sky, but it has not moved into our sight yet. That is why we just had to walk up a mountain to see it, and boy did we walk...

The walk up the slope was really steep and at one point Connor and I were convinced that it was never going to end (seriously, the slope just kept going). We started playing a game to distract ourselves until we reached the ridge and then finally we saw what we had come for, the SUN.

I was never so happy in my life to see it. It was just so astonishingly beautiful. Everything around it was bathed in hues of red, orange and yellow. Parts of the sky were also going over into green, blue and purple hues. The mountains looked more mesmerizing than ever and yes as you can tell I love the sight. The darkness was no problem, but the sun is just...

View of the sun from the top of Trollsteinen

Me and the sun