a late post

Despite nearly a month since my last correspondence, I did in fact arrive safely back in Hanover, all limbs (and toes) still intact. Even this polar bear couldn't catch me, despite jumping through a wall...

Polar bear at the restaurant where we ate our last supper

Our last night in Svalbard was spectacular. The sun hung around the horizon for hours on end, producing a never-ending sunset. I went to bed thinking the sun was setting, and woke up two hours later to see that nothing had changed:

Only a few of us actually attempted to "sleep"  that night; the rest just stayed awake until we had to leave from our dorm the following morning around 2:30 am. On our flight from Boston to Reykjavik, we flew over the tip of Greenland:

Greenland is off to the right in this photo. (I know it doesn't look like anything, but I promise it is actually there!)

a sad day to leave Svalbard

We fly out tomorrow morning on the 4:50 am flight to Oslo, and then from there we head to Reykjavik, Iceland, and then on to Boston. Tomorrow evening will be my first "night" in five weeks, and part of me is quite excited to see the sun set for once. Yet another part of me is sad to say goodbye to Svalbard, to the people that I have met on our trip and in Svalbard, and to the landscape. The sun here is getting lower in the sky, and the first sunset is only a week or two off from now. It would be amazing to be here for that, but I guess that adventure will have to wait until the future. It would be even more amazing to be here when the sun rises for the first time in months: apparently the first part of Longyearbyen to be bathed by sunlight is the church. 

Today we hiked up to the main glacier behind Longyearbyen, and tonight we are headed out to dinner together. Ross and Julie will not tell us where we are going for dinner (as it is supposed to be a surprise), but if we really wanted to figure it out we probably could: there are not that many options here in Longyearbyen, even though it is a city compared to Ny Alesund. 

REU group with Longyearbyen in the distance (photo courtesy of Julie BG)

last few days in Ny Alesund and on to Longyearbyen

The last week has been hectic, as we wrapped up our fieldwork and traveled back to Longyearbyen. On Monday, we collected the last needed CTD and alpha bottle samples and checked on the upwelling sediment traps, which of course had vanished. The fjord monster is hard at work. In the afternoon, we took the boats up the fjord along the Broggerhalvoya peninsula (where Ny Alesund is located) to go look at some stone circles and collect shells from some raised beaches for Laura P's project. Unfortunately, the waves were too big for us to anchor the boats off shore, so we returned to Ny Alesund empty-handed. Monday evening we had our webinar with Polartrec, which is archived here if you didn't get a chance to see it. Throughout the webinar, Mike, who is our PolarTREC teacher, constantly corrected his pronunciation of "glacier" to appease one of our PIs, Ross Powell, who is from New Zealand.

Sadly, Tuesday was our last day of fieldwork. I finished profiling the Kongsvegen/Kronebreen terminus with the echosounder. Julie, Ross, and I then headed to the northernmost toe of Kronebreen to run a few baseline transects there; if the 2011 Svalbard REU group chooses to work in this area rather than the Kongsvegen/Kronebreen terminus, then the few transects that we run there will be useful to them. In the afternoon, we finally made our way out to the peninsula to look at the stone circles and collect some shells. Due to isostatic rebound, many of the beaches along the peninsula have been raised, so a collection of shells from different terraces can provide a snapshot into different offshore ecosystems as a function of time.

stone circles at Broggerhalvoya peninsula

Wednesday we packed up all our field equipment and samples for shipping. For me, sample "packing" is quite easy, because I just throw my data on a few different memory sources, so I have a backup in case a hard drive dies. In comparison, Laura P, Theo, and Hector all have to wait for their samples to dry, cut the unused core liner off, and then package their gravity, sediment trap, and ekmen samples, respectively.

Thursday we finished up the last bit of packing by putting the labels and inventories onto all the boxes and moving the boxes to the necessary locations to be shipped. Afterwards, we headed to lunch, which was unbelievably delicious: potato soup and cheesy bread. At home, I almost always have soup for lunch, so it was a nice surprise for me. We then waited for our flight, which was scheduled for 2:45pm.

The polar bear in the service building (where all our meals are served) wanted to take me for a romantic stroll while we waited for our flight.

When we finally had to leave, I was a wee bit sad. It is hard to say goodbye to such an amazing and surreal place, even though I am excited about the prospect of nighttime in the near future. Unfortunately, clouds covered the fjord as we flew over, but it cleared a little bit later.

sauna, swim, sauna, swim, sauna

What could be more enjoyable than a dip in the Arctic Ocean at 79 degrees N? After a short day in the field and an American dinner (burgers, fries, and ice cream), we headed to the sauna and then walked through town in our towels down to the beach. The water at Ny Alesund is not actually that cold, and the dip felt rather refreshing. Besides, once you get out of the water, you feel nice and toasty, because of the relatively warmer air temperature. We then repeated the process. The second swim felt a wee bit colder, but still no repeat on the frostbite!

Seals have a bit more (strategically-placed) blubber than me to stay warm in the Arctic ocean...but what a cutie!

Despite a short day in the field, we finished collecting all the needed cores and ekmen samples and deployed our last traps. The proximal trap that we deployed in front of the upwelling got snagged on an iceberg and lost in the brash ice within hours. 

buoys, connected to the sediment traps, among the bergy bits

the ice bear

As our Norwegian friend Raymond tells us with a gun slung across his back, "the ice bear can appear out of anywhere; you must be prepared." Yesterday a group of dutch scientists spotted a polar bear on the nearby islands while they were studying the birds, and apparently the bear chased a few of them as they kayaked away. Clearly, I want to see a polar bear, really badly. Unfortunately, no bear spotted today, but maybe that is actually a good thing. 

Today the two professors with us (Julie Brigham-Grette and Ross Powell) finally allowed us to "fly solo." Mama BG and Papa RP reminded us of safety precautions again before we left, which include (1) always be scanning the horizon for polar bears, (2) watch out for bergs, (3) stay at least 150-200 m from the ice front, and (4) be aware of the fog. Also, make sure someone in the boat can actually accurately fire a rifle if needed. It is a bit weird that we "prepare for work" by carrying rifles down to the boat and putting on large orange survival suits, which are best put on by wiggling into them like you would for a sleeping bag. 

Fieldwork today was rather uneventful. I drove the sediment trap and core boat, so I just tried to keep us on point while we deployed traps and the KB corer. It is very challenging to stay on point in front of the ice front, because the currents are strong and there is no nearby land to help you judge your position. One of the sediment traps that we deployed today in the morning we found 200 m away from its deployment location in the afternoon. Icebergs seem to be quite happy to pick up traps and move them around--luckily the berg moved the trap into shallower water today, so we didn't lose it. 

reindeer in Ny Alesund, with the launch tower for the Amundsen-Ellsworth-Nobile dirigible expedition (1927) that flew over the North Pole

each bird sits on its own berg

nearing the end of our fieldwork

We have four more days out in the field, followed by a day of packing in Ny Alesund and our flight to Longyearbyen on Thursday. It is strange to think that our fieldwork is almost over: on the on the one hand it feels like we just got started, and on the other it feels like it has been years since we got here. Yet another Arctic dichotomy.

Our days now extend long into the evenings with data processing, and the energy level in the group has definitely plummeted a bit. The 24 hour sunlight is no longer a barrier for most of us to fall asleep. Luckily on the weekends our schedule changes a bit, and we can get an extra hour of sleep.

The last three days have been beautiful on the fjord. Yesterday, we braved a cloudy, foggy Ny Alesund to drive down to the icefront to judge whether the weather would cooperate. Once we left Ny Alesund, we drove into a beautiful clear day.

Kongsvegen/Kronebreen 

tourist ship in the fog at the Ny Alesund dock

surreal and busy

Everything blends into one here. It is nearly impossible to judge time and distance. We can be 1 km or 100 m from the ice face, and it all feels the same - like you could just reach out and touch it. I also have no way to judge time (especially when it is cloudy and my watch is buried in my survival suit), and it is surprisingly pleasant to feel "lost in time." Still, my body desperately attempts to find environmental cues to know when to go to bed. Right now I judge bedtime as the time when the sled dogs bark and the sun shines directly through my window.

On top of that, tourist ships can drop off 3,000 people at one time in Ny Alesund. Considering the population of Ny Alesund is 50-100 people, this is quite a bit of shock to the system. It is strange to be on the other side of tourism for a change, and to be a "tourist attraction." When ever we see tourists taking pictures of us now, we jokingly ask "5 euro or 20 beers for a photo." If I earned $10 for every photo that has been taken of me, I might have enough money to pay for the rest of my college education. I've noticed that tourists particularly like to take photos of sediment cores and people dressed in dirty survival suits.

On Sunday, two huge tourist ships came into town. One dropped around 2,000 people and the other dropped close to 3,000 people.

Beyond contemplating the surreal nature of Ny Alesund (everyone does it here), we have been very busy. On Sunday, we covered most of the upwelling area with the echosounder. The discharge from the subglacial upwelling forces all the bergy bits out of the plume area, which is ideal for echosounding. On Sunday, the discharge was greater than usual and therefore we had a lot more clear water to navigate.

border of the plume, where the bergy bits collect

Yesterday, we collected Theo's three sediment traps from the delta and redeployed them in the same locations. Unfortunately, we lost one of those sediment traps today, likely to a berg. We also have lost both sediment traps deployed in the upwelling area because of a strong current, which forces the buoys lower than we can retrieve.

Today we continued with the echosounding in the middle of the Kongsvegen/Kronebreen face and near the delta. The ice front stayed rather stable all day, so it did not supply many obstacles (bergs) for the echosounding. Despite a cloudy, somewhat cold day, I stayed nice and toasty in my plastic bag. In fact, I produced enough hot air in the bag to cause it to "rain" on the computer. Woops.

When I get home from days when we used the echosounder, I have to input the GPS points manually into a spreadsheet because we do not have a USB cable. We take points every minute and typically run the echosounder for about 4 hours, so you can imagine how many points I have to input. So far, I have yet to make any pretty figures, but here is a rough preview of our transects thus far (without a base map, scale, or compass direction, unfortunately):

The ice front, which is to the right in this diagram, is about 2.5 km across. There are several obvious holes in our profiling thus far, but once those are full, we will likely go profile another of the toes of Kronebreen if we have time.

Now off to bed! I'm exhausted.

a beautiful day in Ny Alesund

When I woke up this morning, a thick fog coated the town. Within twenty minutes, the fog had completed evaporated. Two days of fog turned into a beautiful Saturday in the field, topped off with wine night in the service building and a night at the bar. (On Saturdays, everyone around town dresses up for dinner and brings wine. Kings Bay even brings out the fancy paper napkins, and there are wine glasses!)

Ny Alesund coming out of the fog

our daily commute to the glaciers (which takes 30-60 minutes, depending on the wind and concentration of bergy bits)

After successfully deploying three sediment traps yesterday, we deployed another two today. Theo, who's thesis relies on the sediment traps, is quite excited about our success: as he puts it, he has "five buns in the oven." Hopefully none of them get moved or snagged by icebergs before we retrieve them; usually, about half of the traps will be lost.

our daily meeting to swap boats

Today Mike, Ross, and I also started to run transects across the fjord in front of Kongsvegen/Kronebreen with the echosounder. We recorded two transects today, both perpendicular to the ice face and out from the upwelling plume. After a few trial and errors (one of which involved running an entire transect and a failure on my part to record it), we developed quite an efficient system. Ross attempts to drive in a straight line and avoid icebergs. Mike records GPS points along the transect, since we do not have an automatic way to input this into the echosounder program. I watch the depth profile on the computer screen and make adjusts on the high and low frequency channels, and also tell Mike when to take waypoints. The best part is that, throughout all of this, my head is in a black plastic bag so that I can see the screen in the light. I remember when I was a kid my mom told me NOT to put my head in a plastic bag, and now that I am better educated and more mature I realize the flaws of her statement: only put your head in a plastic bag when it is for science and you trust the people around you take it off your head when you start to suffocate.

echosounder set up (and my head in a bag)

It's late (and still light out), so I'm headed to the bar!

Arctic fog

The Arctic fog came in yesterday morning, so we stuck around Ny Alesund and tried to wait it out. Unfortunately the fog never lifted, but we decided to head down to the glaciers anyways. Phaedra needed to pick up her water pressure gauge and deploy another one in the same spot, and Theo also needed to pick up his lonely sediment trap. Unfortunately, when we took the trap out of the water, we discovered that the cord had become tangled and therefore the traps were tilted sideways and not collecting sediment as desired. While we re-deployed the trap, the twine snapped on the winch and we lost the trap, yet again. 

Today we successfully deployed three traps. When we were done, a heavy coat of fog rolled down the glacier and surrounded us. We had to use the shoreline (and the GPS) to navigate back to Ny Alesund, and nearly ran aground several times attempting to keep the shore in sight. 

pirate ship in the fog

the fog rolling in over the glacier 

driving home in the fog 

slow going

The past three days have been very busy. On Monday, my boat deployed two sediment traps and lost both of them. Each sediment trap is set to the water column depth at that location, which is determined by taking an ekmen or core sample. Unfortunately, even after this process, we managed to make the first trap too short and when we tossed it over, it just sunk. Bye bye trap. On the second try, we decided to be smart about the ordeal, and attached the last buoy to the boat to make sure it wouldn't sink. The rope went slack, so we untied it from the boat assuming it had hit bottom, and it then proceeded to disappear, probably eaten by nessy below. On Tuesday, we deployed another trap, which we didn't lose, but it still didn't hit bottom. In fact, when we first deployed it, it looked like it had hit bottom - but two minutes later the buoy was running away towards the ice and disappearing below - luckily we were still attached. From these observations, it is likely that we were attempting to deploy the traps on a morainal bank, and the rock that is holding down the trap is rolling down the steep backside.

Today Ross, Mike, and I stuck around Ny Alesund for the morning to work on setting up the echosounder on one of the boats. The boat that we are using has a rubber hull and as a result we had to find a new way to clamp our required supports onto the boat without bending the hull. Luckily, Mike put his carpentry skills to work and developed a system so that we can clamp down the supports onto the hull from the inside and outside. Hopefully tomorrow we will start running transects with the instrument in front of Kongsvegen/Kronebreen, if it is not raining.

after-breakfast group meeting

calm waters at Kongsvegen

echosounder set up (photo by Mike Rhinard)

prepping for fieldwork

After a bit of waiting, we are finally starting to get into the swing of things and collect some samples. On Saturday, we headed out in the boats and used the box cores, CTD/OBS, alpha bottles, and ball check core. We have decided to focus on two areas in front of Kronebreen for sediment collection: one is the upwelling of a subglacial stream and the other is the delta. Perhaps obviously, these two areas provide the bulk of sediment that ends up on the ocean floor. The boat that I was in headed to the upwelling and spent the day deploying the box core. Out of seven tries, we only managed to come away with one decent sample that actually preserved the water-sediment interface. 

deploying a box core (photo by Julie Brigham-Grette)

Today we prepared the sediment traps, which we will deploy tomorrow. It took us close to eight hours to construct six traps. 

. 

drilling the PVC pipe for the sediment traps (photo by Julie Brigham-Grette)

The weekends in Ny Alesund are not what I would have expected. On Friday night, the town empties as people disperse out to cabins. They often head to a cabin called "Gorilla," which received its name because people act like gorillas while they are there.  The meal plan also changes on the weekend to brunch at 10:00 and dinner at 18:30, rather than the weekly schedule of breakfast, lunch, and dinner at 7:30, 12:30, and 16:30, respectively. The meals this weekend were delicious, because the ship which will supply our food for the next month just arrived. As a result, we have fresh vegetables and fresh fruit, but soon we will return to the canned goods of the previous week. 

Ok, well enough for now: I need to get to bed!

sunbathing in Ny Alesund

After a long, hard day of work, what could be better than sun bathing in the Arctic Ocean? That is sunbathing with a survival suit and beer, of course. Once we finished our work on the boats, we jumped into the ocean with a beer in hand and floated around for a bit. Floating in a survival suit is kind of like lying on a water bed, except even more relaxing. The only difficulty is overcoming the buoyancy of your body when you try to take a sip of beer.

swimming in the Arctic Ocean

This afternoon we played around with the scientific instruments a bit and attached the winches to the boats. At the moment, my project looks like it will be focused on the bathymetry in front of Kongsvegen and Kronebreen, which I will compare to data from 2005. All three glaciers have retreated significantly since 2005, so I will also be looking at ocean floor that has yet to be mapped and how that is related to the retreat history. The research will likely be driven by the following research questions:

1) How has the bathymetry in front of the glaciers changed since 2005?

2) How are changes in bathymetry related to the retreat history?

3) How much total sediment has been deposited since 2005?

Unfortunately, we have yet to find the best way to attach the depth profiler to the boat. When the instrument is lowered on metal rods far below sea level, the metal rods bend and the instrument drifts below the boat when the boat is in motion. When the instrument is closer to sea level, bubbles form around the instrument, which can also interfere with the readings. So it is a matter of finding that "perfect" level, and the best way to buttress the instrument against the boat so that is does not drift under the boat. We are in the process of cutting the metal rods that connect the instrument to the boat, so that will likely help.

more reconnaissance

Today we explored another area where Kronebreen enters the ocean that has opened up since 2005. We talked a bit about the glacial features that a glacier leaves behind when it retreats from an area, and the significance of those features - we also looked at other features like the ones below:

pedestal of ice below a rock, with a rifle for scale

Which way is the rock dipping? Clearly an ice axe and rifle are needed to figure this one out, rather than a brunton.

the scale of the landscape is unbelievable, so here are some people for scale

On the way home, we found a large ice berg that had calved off from the base of the glacier. Ice bergs make it relatively "easy" to get a sample of the basal till and an idea of the amount of sediment that the glacier is carrying. 

large ice berg, with boat on the right for scale

iceberg stratigraphy and basal sediment

striated basal ice

Someone, who will remain nameless, told me that I have not provided enough photos of us in our survival suits. More of those are bound to come once we start studying the sedimentation processes, but here are a few shots for the moment:

survival suits and matching dry bags 

driving lessons (avoid the bergs)

exploring the delta and ice

We landed on the outwash in front of Kongsvegen to do a bit more exploration by foot. Kongsvegen (a surge type glacier which is presently in its quiescent phase) has retreated significantly in the last four years, opening up new "ground" that has yet to be studied. The area is still covered by ice below the melting-out sediment layer (ice cored moraines, etc.) from the retreat. The melting ice makes the ground rather squishy--that mixed with the muddy channels means a perfect location to test the limits of a pair of Muck Boots. 

We also walked up a bit of elf ice to get onto the toe of Kongsvegen glacier and see some spectacular supraglacial streams that flow off the glacier as a waterfall.  

Kongsvegen terminus

supraglacial stream

sediment pinnacle

WOW

After lunch, we finally jumped into the boats and headed down towards Kronebreen glacier. To be safe out on the water, we need a rifle in case we encounter a torpedo-walrus or polar bear, and also our survival suits. My survival suit is a bit large, and tends to fall down around my legs so that I can only waddle around. The survival suit also keeps you incredibly warm, which is a benefit when the wind is blowing.

The fjord and glacier termini are absolutely gorgeous. The face of Kronebreen stretches about 70 m above the water and about another 100-150 m below depending on the bathymetry. It is nearly impossible to tell how close you are to the glacier, unless you drive up directly to the face--that, however, would be a poor decision because of calving. You can think that you are only 500 m away, and the actual distance might be closer to 2 km.

We all got incredibly excited about seeing our field site and took more photos than probably necessary. I shot 83 photos in 3 hours, which is a record for me (especially considering I rarely take photos). We also saw several calving events, which are hard to get on camera. Hopefully my response time to calving events will increase in the future, and I will be able to document them. Here are some photos from our adventure:

seal (i.e., polar bear meat)

trimline, likely from the Little Ice Age

Parts of Kronebreen are retreating back onto land (see the bedrock in the middle of the photo). Also, there is a calving event in this photo if you can pick it out...

Hannah models our survival suits and points out a subglacial stream. Subglacial streams are relatively easy to detect on the surface here, because they (1) create a sediment plume as they bring up sediment from beneath the glacier and (2) birds gather around them, because as the freshwater flows to the surface, it brings up krill.

bergy bits in Kongsfjorden

arch above subglacial stream at Kronebreen

blue ice in iceberg with Kronebreen in background

view of Kronebreen and Kongsvegen from Kings Bay Marine Lab

mini calving event, Kronebreen