... in the pitch dark, reducing visibility and the ship’s speed, 2 hours out from our final core site with the clock ticking down to handover. Another quick change of plans and, fortunately, a short-lived snowstorm (though one that had me pretty ...
... Freire from the Department of Geological Sciences has been onboard to see that the multibeam echo sounder is working continuously and that is it regularly calibrated with sound speed measurements of the ocean water. Francis also operates ...
... still muddy but the rocky scree made for reasonable footholds. We then climbed about 200 m up across the slope looking for any outcrops of marine shale, which is our prime target for aquatic reptiles. Grzegorz found an impression of an ...
... oldschool and ridiculously simple and yet there’s no better way to learn about an ecosystem than to put on hiking boots and search for bones, bend on the knees and determine plant species composition, take binoculars and look out for ...
... even cleared in the moment of writing, August 2. This means that we have to break through the sea ice that is blocking us from reaching the working area for the expedition, the Petermann Fjord and adjacent areas all the way across to ...
The sun was out as we set off for our collecting trip. We packed wrapping paper, sample bags and small chisels for our assault on the concretions. We were not to be disappointed. The first few hours on the slope yielded well over 100 specimens of...
Spent the morning resting and packing our fossils for transport back to Sweden. Everything needed to be marked with GPS coordinates, labeled and inventoried ...
... site. We set arthropod traps across a landscape with scattered vegetation to target both flying insects and walking arthropods such as spiders. Despite the apparent low productivity of the site, we have already recorded several mammal ...
... last week. Not knowing when our first CTD station would be, we immediately – well, after fika – started unpacking to be prepared. But first, let me explain to you what a CTD is. CTD stands for “Conductivity, Temperature and Depth”. It ...
We worked down river as far as the ice tunnel taking GPS waypoints for the most important outcrops. We located some of the older horizons and found parts of giant ammonite, ...
... –stalked filter-feeding invertebrates that have a distinctively asymmetrical valved shell. Geologically speaking, we had also just walked through the greatest mass extinction event of all time. Over 80% of all life disappeared at the ...
... flight be for Kap Stosch or all the way back to Sweden? The doctor’s response was laconic – “you are OK to keep working, I’ll just show you how to take out your own stitches”. Looks like I am staying then. A few phone calls to both our ...
... and our effort is to collect as much data as possible but we still need to spend time with everyday duties like cooking and doing the dishes. A special task that is associated with field work in the Arctic is polar bear safety. We are ...
... as Sven. When arrived to the entrance to Petermann Fjord August 3 it was blocked by sea ice, a new ice breaking challenge for Mattias and his crew and more helicopter flights. The southerly wind that prevailed for many days had ...
... trapped underneath ice (which is very likely to happen in this waters), the buoy can wait for several years, checking every month if it is able to transmit its data. When the main task, which is sending the temperature data, is ...
... we made it as far as the mountains, but these are a no go because of the high winds. On the way out we had been joking (nervously on my part) about the rough air turbulence. If the pilot looks panicked I will panic. In the meantime I will ...
... were what we were really after though. Problem was that the site was covered by snow. We had to scratch around looking for blocks of shale. After locating three promising outcrops we dug out large blocks the size of dinner-plates up to car ...
... represents a species new to science! Henning excitedly danced around for a while with his prize before tenderly packing it for the trip home. By now Ben and Henning were getting really cold. The wind had also picking up so they decided to ...
... Later, we decided to sneak closer to observe them at a shorter distance. We were approaching them slowly, always making only a few steps and waiting for them to get used to us. They didn’t seem to care. We managed to get at a 20-meter ...
Woke up at about 0100 to shrieking wind and the tent flapping. Better check the guys. I was almost pushed over by the freezing wind when I finally got out. ...
