Icebound - Svalbard's ice sheet
How much ice was there on Svalbard during the last ice age? When were the glaciers on Svalbard the largest? Has the melting of the ice affected the ocean currents in the north?
These are questions the "Icebound" project wants to find answers to through its work in Svalbard. Several seasons in the field in Northwest Spitsbergen (2008-2011), with the collection of rock samples, and subsequent lab work, will hopefully provide the answer to how thick the ice in Svalbard was during the last ice age.
Norwegian Glacier Museum has been our partner and former head of academics, Trygve Snøtun, participated in fieldwork in April and May in 2009 and 2010. The result of this was a great poster that was exhibited under "Isaktuelt". You can download the poster here .
Map of Northwest Spitsbergen with sample locations.
North-west Spitsbergen. Photo: Anne Hormes.
This is how Trygve summarizes the trip:
"The trip was fantastic!! In total, the stay in Svalbard lasted five weeks, three of which were in tents at almost 80° north, surrounded by snow and ice.
The aim of the project is to find out when the ice cover on Svalbard was at its largest and how thick the ice was then based on field data from the area. By collecting rock samples from mountain peaks, one can find out in a laboratory how long this rock has been exposed to radiation from the atmosphere, i.e. how long it has been since the rock was last covered by glacier So the fieldwork involved collecting rock samples from the amazing mountains of Northwest Spitsbergen.
Despite both equipment and weather problems, the fieldwork was successful, with many rock samples from a relatively large geographical area. The mountain peaks themselves had to be reached on foot or on skis, while the rest of the transport was done by snowmobile. We ended up driving 2000 kilometers!
The project was completed during the spring of 2012 and the doctoral degree was submitted in the autumn of the same year. Doctoral fellow and project leader, Endre Før Gjermundsen, was in a hectic period in the autumn of 2011 with the completion of results and article writing, during which he states the following:
"What is exciting about our data from Northwest Spitsbergen so far is that they show extremely little erosion on the mountains up there during the Quaternary (the last 2.6 million years). In fact, we get the lowest erosion rates ever reported. This means that even though we have had ice sheets up there that have covered the highest mountain peaks several times during this period, these ice sheets have not modified the landscape (at least not the peaks) to a particular extent. So when we often talk about the Quaternary period shaping the landscape as we see it today, that is not true for Northwest Spitsbergen. The shaping of this landscape must have taken place at an earlier stage."
For more information about the project, see the blog written by one of the other expedition members.
Sampling at Munken. Photo: Endre Før Gjermundsen.
A mighty glacier in Svalbard. Photo: Trygve Snøtun.
North-West Spitsbergen. Photo: Endre Før Gjermundsen.
