Arctic Technology

Hello it's Kendal,  

On Svalbard there is always lots to do as you can see from the previous blog posts but I am sure some of you must be thinking do we ever do any work at university. I am going to use this blog post to tell you about the courses that Daniel, Jamie and I study here in the Arctic.

I study Arctic Technology.  Of course everyone assumes when I say Arctic Technology I’m fantastic with computers and I love nothing more than seeing how modern technology works in cold climates but no that’s not exactly it. Even people studying at UNIS think that is what Arctic technology is!!  We get lots of requests for general technical assistance.

Arctic Technology offers two bachelors modules in autumn semester:

AT-210: Arctic Environmental Pollution

AT-209: Arctic Hydrology and Climate Change

Arctic Pollution is a module lead by Professor Mark Hermanson. He sticks to his American roots by wearing his Levi's every class. His course covers a wide variety of topics including Oil Spills and Storage in the Arctic.  This part of the course involved an interesting and fun field trip to the airport where I ended up learning a lot about how the small but very busy airport works. We also learned about Mercury and POPs. POPs sound exciting and like something from back to the future. It stands for Persistent Organic Pollutants, which aren't from back to the future but are very important to protecting the environment. For a chemical to be classified as a POP they have to be Bioaccumulative, Toxic, Persistent, and capable of Long Range Transport. This is a deadly combination especially if we want to continue human existence on Earth. This is why they are either banned or classed as restricted use products for example Dioxins or DDE (pesticide). These chemicals are produced and used nowhere near the Arctic so how do we know they are here? Well, on the rooftop of UNIS there are air samplers which simply consist of a stand with a few vents open to the air and inside a filter held in place using a fancy clamp. During my time here the class has been carrying out practical work and taking air samples to be sent for analysis in specialist labs.

Arctic Hydrology covers interesting aspects of arctic environments such as glaciers, snowmelt, river catchments and water supplies to arctic settlements such as Longyearbyen. This course involved lots of fieldwork including the week long Pyramiden field trip, snow analysis in -16 degrees and a few trips to Mine 7 to look at catchments and how drainage works in the valleys. This course is taught by Nils Roar who is Norwegian. Nils loves hiking and that’s why we do so much field work as part of the course which happens to be my favourite aspect. During the semester I was tasked with working in a group to estimate Mass Balance of a glacier named Bertilbreen in Svalbard that we took measurements of during the field week. We found that the glacier is decreasing in Mass Balance, this follows the trend for all glaciers in Svalbard and is a direct response to the changing climate.

(Well, Kendal pretty much summed up half of what you'd need for our exams! - Daniel)

UNIS offers a lot of interesting courses with fieldwork opportunities and a lot of fun!

One of our classrooms

UNIS reception

Jamie's photo of UNIS

Hey, its Daniel again, look at that two writers for one post, must be the end of the semester!

Now that Kendal has told you all about the courses we studied this semester I wanted to add a bit more about the fun stuff. Kendal reminded me that we hadn't actually discussed one of the most exciting things so far; the northern lights! While I'm sure Jamie (the photographer) has the best pictures, he is also flying them back to Scotland with him (should be somewhere around Oslo now if I think). So my amateur attempts at taking pictures of the aurora borealis will have to suffice!

Most people think it requires great trickery to get the lights to look like that but you'll have to trust us, it takes a lot of practice to get it right on the camera but it still isn't as bright and vivid as they appear in the sky! 

I think I really fell in love with Svalbard one night when we were watching the aurora and the Draconid meteor shower, truly a spectacular and unforgettable experience. Although not all of us were as lucky, I remember Jamie telling me one day that he had gone outside at 9PM and at 11PM and had not been able to see anything while his barrack kept telling him it was one of the best nights for aurora! 

Still, seeing aurora isn't the only dark season activity there are also concerts like the Dark Season Blues which Jamie volunteered at and there was a concert by a Norwegian band recently called Valkyrien Allstars which I went to which was also a lot of fun!

And finally, you can never waste a good snow opportunity although, snow man felt too... normal?

It might not be obvious but it is a snow-horse! 

So, that's all from Kendal and I but Jamie will be back next semester with Holger and Matt. All the best for them and for the students at SAMS, we'll see you soon!

The mountains are calling, and I must go.

Hey! 

Sam Black here and I'm back on Svalbard. I've been here for the past two weeks and sadly now, Its time to leave. So, for old times sake, here's what I've been up to.

Now I wouldn't say my trip to Svalbard was for business or pleasure. Over the past 13 days I've been carrying out my dissertation lab work alongside a marine molecular biology masters course. Firstly let me highlight that I'm no molecular biologist. If only I'd known what I was getting myself in for...It's been a tough week of learning the ropes of DNA extraction, PCR and all the various lab protocols to avoid contamination etc. Safe to say I'm now pretty skilled with a pipette, or at least I am when this repetitive strain injury in my shoulder goes away.

I arrived on the 1st of November to a wet Longyearbyen. I was informed, by almost everyone I met, that all the lovely snow had recently melted. This big melting event had left a town of deadly ice where 'friction' is a cruel mistress. Arriving back during term time left me feeling nostalgic. At first I felt intimidated with all the new faces but I quickly settled in. The first week of lab work involved meticulously weighing out small pieces of sea weed, DNA extraction of said small pieces then learning about how to run PCR's. It was a steep learning curve but incredibly I made it through the week in one piece and on schedule.

In the evenings I joined back in with the sports I used to play; volleyball, basketball and football. The world famous Longyearbyen vs. Barentsburg sports competition was taking place that weekend, so I was keen to get into the team. As the temperature had dropped over the week and the snow had returned I took a trip on Saturday morning to the ice caves with 3 Danish anthropologists who I'd had over for dinner earlier in the week. The glacier and the cave had changed dramatically over the summer, it was incredible. I couldn't recognise any part of the cave. I took some quick photos and headed down to down in a hurry as I was up against the Russians in the volleyball team at mid day.

Volleyball went well and in the end we won by only 2 points! Funnily I was interviewed and filmed by the BBC who are producing a docu-soap series up here over 8 months. After looking into the camera numerous times I doubt my mug will be on your screens any time soon. I was roped into refereeing the football game straight after where Longyear lost 4-2. I'll leave that one off my C.V for now. Basketball was great fun and we won by a large margin.
Afterwards we all headed to a nearby restaurant and ate a lot of free pizza and drank a lot of free beer. Longyearbyen now has its own brewery producing some fine beer - I can highly recommend the pilsner, pictured here. The night ended in the only club on the island, Huset. I found myself sliding my way home on the ice at 4am under the northern lights - old habits die hard here on Svalbard!

The following week of lab work didn't go as smoothly as the first where I spent three days trying to fine tune my PCR set up. After numerous tries I found the magic formula and managed to get the successful products I needed. Sparing you the details, the rest of the week involved selecting the samples that I wanted to use, washing them over magnetic beads and preparing them to send them away for sequencing. Easier. Said. Than. Done. This weekend I've managed to fit in a trip to the mine, a night in the pub playing pool and some fat bike rides in the valley.

Then today at 6pm, after my 60th hour in the UNIS lab, I managed to finished my lab work (for now). What a relief! I've heard a picture says a 1000 words, so here's two that sum up my time here.

Me: 2 weeks ago

Me: Today

Until next time Svalbard, lots of love, Sam.

Goodbye sun, hello winter...

We are now past the last sunrise/set (there wasn't really much in-between) of the year and so now the best we get is a few hours half light in the middle of the day. Today is also the first day to be above freezing in a couple of weeks and so everything is incredibly slippery as the snow covering the ice on everything is melting a bit. The weather should be back to what we are used to pretty soon though. We had our final field trip of the semester on Wednesday in -16 °C, digging snow pits to look at the structure and composition of the snow pack; our transport for the day was the belt-wagon, a wonderful contraption built using the same basic principle as two tanks attached together minus armaments.

We've also been hiking in the snow a few times over the last few weeks, managing to capture the elusive creature that is all three of the SAMS students in one place, at the same time, and positioned in front of the camera (although Kendal wasn't quite on script!). See evidence below.

 

Less successful was our attempt to make it to the top of Nordenskiöldfjellet, the highest mountain in the vicinity of Longyearbyen, but we still had a fun hike in the snow which caused a few moments of people descending into an unseen dip in the topography and up to their waist in snow, much to everyone else's amusement. The reindeer have definitely fluffed up as the weather has got colder so now resemble teddy bears more and more:

I also got to fly a drone during fieldwork a few weeks ago which was lots of fun once I'd taken a minute to got the knack of it, especially since the one we used didn't have a live view camera on.

"It must be up there somewhere...."  Photo credit: Susanne Lindholm

Last weekend I volunteered to help move and set up/dismantle equipment for the Dark Season Blues, the world's northernmost blues festival, and most likely any music festival. This entailed lots of carrying and coiling, plugging and unplugging and interpreting a few instructions in Norwegian (far simpler than apologising and explaining again); it is amazing how much you can get from the odd word and pointing! The weekend was quite a lot of work and I realised how little lifting and carrying you normally do up here, despite the generally active lifestyle; I had lots of fun though and I got a crew pass for the weekend and freebies to wear. All the volunteers got free pizza and drinks this Thursday night, which made leaving for uni at 7:30 on Friday hard work!

We're hurtling at alarming speed towards the end of the semester: this week is our final week of lectures and a final midterm, report deadlines, presentations, and then final exams are in the pipeline soon. Working when it is nasty weather and dark outside is far better than when it was sunny and always light though so it isn't too bad! 

I think that's everything of note that's been happening up here really; I'm sure there will be plenty more to report back in a couple of weeks.

Jamie

Cabin Trip

Hi everyone it’s Kendal here.

Since my last post,‎ we have been busy exploring the surrounding area with a five day field trip to Pyramiden and a day trip to the Russian settlement of Barentsburg. I have also squeezed in time to kayak across the fjord. 

The most exciting adventure on Svalbard has been our cabin trip to Foxdalen, a valley and glacier approximately 15km outside of Longyearbyen. Jamie, Susanne and I set off  on Friday afternoon when we finished lectures. As you can see from the photo below our bags probably weighed the same as us so we decided to taxi our way to the end of the road. This meant we only had a 6km hike to the cabin.

After our short but exhausting hike, we were extremely glad to catch the first glimpse of our accommodation that came in the form of a little red hut with a typically beautiful wooden décor inside and of course a log-burning stove.

Photo taken by Susanne

The first job as soon as we arrived was to light the fire and then wrap up warm in our sleeping bags to watch the sunset before having an early night. The next day we went on a hike where we encountered lots of reindeer and each collected reindeer antlers, we saw a solar halo and experimented with our photography skills below some ice.

Photo taken by Susanne

We also had spare time to practice our yoga poses at the top of the mountain!

Photo taken by Jamie

On Saturady afternoon Olesia and Ilya arrived at the cabin. We had a quick dinner and decided to go for a short evening hike to see the sunset.  After an energetic light saber fight ‎we settled in for the night and treated ourselves to mulled wine and smores.‎

Photo taken by Susanne

After a good nights sleep we awoke to a light layer of snow on the ground.  We set off on our journey back to Longyearbyen at midday, thankfully with much lighter bags having used all the water, food and firewood.

Definitely looking forward to our next adventure!

Photo taken by Susanne

Hi everyone, it's Daniel again!

In the last post Jamie told you about our Field work in Pyramiden so I'm going to take the opportunity while Jamie and Kendal are away at a cabin to tell you about the last couple of weeks.

We were all so tired after Pyramiden that we didn't go on any hikes that weekend. The next week we began Sediment Transport (a refreshing reminder of H2 Marine Geology for those at SAMS) with guest lecturer Jim Bogen and our first lectures for AT-210 Arctic Environmental Pollution. The first lectures were mostly introducing us to the topic and outlining the variety of toxic chemicals that are found around the world and defining contaminants and pollutants. With the sediment transport though we got another field excursion and our first lab work! This meant going on a tour of Longyearbyen and  taking water samples from the main rivers and the dam that supplies the town with water. In the lab we followed a procedure allowing us to find the mass of dissolved particles and the percentage of that which was organic (using some pretty impressive mass balances which were mounted on steel pillars).  It meant an early morning (0815) on Friday morning to combust our samples but then that gave us the afternoon free. 

The next week we had a reading week for hydrology but in pollution however we were learning about fuel transport, storage and spills which involved three (yes, three!) field excursions. This meant a tour of the fuel storage facilities at the airport the next day and of Longyearbyen's fuel storage the day after. On the Friday our excursion was a boat trip to and a tour around the Russian town of Barentsburg! I think (and I suspect that Jamie and Kendal will agree) that the highlight of the day was on the way to the town when we saw a fin whale! 

(Courtesy of Jamie - his camera skills were much better than mine!) We then stopped to have lunch in front of a glacier while the crew grilled a range of meets on the main deck. Moral questions were raised when we were offered whale meat for lunch (morals aside, don't try it, Kendal and I agreed it was tasteless). This continued to be one of the most relaxed field excursions we've been on to date as after touring the massive (and rather unsafe) storage facilities (for fuel that they didn't use in the town - conspiracy theorists love that one) we ended up in a hotel trying the local brew of beer. (Jamie - the suspicious Russian Fuel Storage in Barentsburg) (Jamie Rodgers - some students enjoying crisps and a beer)

That weekend Jamie and Kendal and our friend Susanne went for a hike up to Trollstein with our guest lecturer for pollution Anna Waitkus on the Saturday which was much more interesting that my detour to the shop across the plateau beneath Nordenskiöldtoppen with some friendly Arctic Biology Students. (Jamie doing some delayed photography for selfies again - from left to right; Kendal Hunter, Jamie Rodgers, Anna Waitkus and Susanne Lindholm)

This week past though we were given our Hydrology report assignments (my group has a short literature review, think I got the best assignment!) and lectures on Permafrost with Hydrology and Mercury in Polar Regions by guest lecturer Michelle Nerentorp for Pollution. This meant studying the lectures each day as we competed in a quiz each morning with the overall winner getting a bag of sweets but everyone else in the class got a Kvikk Lunsj (very much like a Kit Kat back home). While the rest of us left class on Friday for the UNIS Oktoberfest celebrations Jamie, Kendal and Susanne had been very organised and arranged with the Longyearbyen Hunting Society to use a cabin in Foxdallen for the weekend and I’m sure Kendal with have some fantastic pictures and stories to tell about that.

Finally, we all had plans to view the super lunar eclipse tomorrow morning  but at the moment it is snowing as so I am afraid that it is unlikely that we will see anything.

That’s all from me, hopefully Kendal will write another post soon all about our hikes this week and their trip to Foxdallen! 

P.s. She might even have some pictures of the night sky recently, hint hint!

Pyramiden Field Trip

(Jamie here)

We've been here a few weeks now so are getting pretty settled into Longyearbyen, which must be why it was time for our field trip to a town even further north and more remote! Pyramiden is an abandoned Russian coal mining town that was last properly occupied in 1998. Since then the coal mines have lain silent and the only building occupied is the hotel in which we stayed, feeling a little like we had stumbled back into the 1970s. Pyramiden is quite literally built on Russian soil, shipped in when much of the town was originally built.

We travelled to Pyramiden in a massive RIB type boat; due to a lack of appropriately sized survival suits both me and Daniel ended stuck up in the (heated) cabin whilst Kendal braved the outside, sadly both sides of the glass were slightly envious of the other!

We were delayed setting off due to the sea state out in the fjord so spent the morning relaxing in the UNIS library (they have a hammock and big bean bags - please Shona?). By 12 it had calmed down and the trip across to Pyramiden was quite smooth and quick. On arrival we were deposited on the ramshackle quay and cadged a lift on the bus, which surely must be in the running for most northerly? After depositing our belongings on the chequered lino floor of our rooms we headed out to take salt dilution measurements of the flow rate of the stream coming down from the glacier above the town.

Checking the mixing of the flow with luminous dye. No photoshop involved!

Science!

After fieldwork it was time to head back to the hotel for our dinner and to watch a video on the history of Pyramiden, including video of a ski race meeting a polar bear! We also went exploring around the town and docks.

On Tuesday we went up onto the glacier and split into groups to find some highly elusive stakes laid out by the Czech research station to record the movement and accumulation/melting of the glacier. We reconvened for lunch half way up, and again to be guided down another glacier by Jacob, a PHD student from the Czech station, and hike back out to Pyramiden in a beautiful light, arriving slightly late for dinner and starving! A highlight of the day (other than being on a glacier in amazing sunshine) was an arctic fox coming and investigating us on the way up to the glacier in the morning.

The next day we visited some of the derelict water supply reservoirs that supplied the town and after lunch in a cabin split into three groups, one group (including both me and Daniel) hiked up and around to visit a huge waterfall from the top; the second group (with Kendal in it) hiked up the gorge to see the same waterfall from below and a few also went back to the hotel at this point. We arrived there first and whilst Jacob went to take pictures for his project we relaxed and enjoyed the view; just as we were leaving we received a radio call from the gorge group to say they were arriving at the base of the falls, many metres below us.

Dried lunch with water from the flasks made some of our packs far lighter!

Heat exchangers to keep the permafrost in the dam frozen so it remains watertight.

Fossils are quite common finds on hikes

It is impossible to get a sense of scale in such a landscape

The other group (Kendal in the pink hat) looked like ants making their way up the gorge.

Daniel crosses a smaller stream on our return down the other side of the valley, far above the gorge.

On arrival back at the hotel we were excitedly informed by the other group that the guide based out of the hotel had encountered and scared off a polar bear from the shore in the town, just a few hundred metres from the hotel but they didn't see it.

The previous nights polar bear sighting had us on high alert as we started out final full day in Pyramiden, walking to visit the Czech research station a few kilometres along the coast. We had a break there sampling their extensive range of biscuits before spending the afternoon comparing different methods of measuring flow rate and sediment transport and visiting the weather station they maintain. We then had dinner in the station, which oozes character, originally built as a Russian mining hut years ago before being used by a poacher who was unceremoniously kicked out and the station let to the Czechs for a nominal rent. After dinner we took a trip in a RIB across to the edge of a huge glacier on the opposite side of the fjord and went ashore and through a tunnel in the ice created by flowing meltwater. We were hoping to see the polar bear but he was presumably still somewhere on the Pyramiden side of the fjord, this small fact didn't stop us reporting back to the others that we had seen it of course!

This piece of ice looks suspiciously like Nessie...

 The following morning we met up with two chartered tourist RIBs for the trip back to Longyearbyen after a very busy week! I'll leave you with a few pictures of the town of Pyramiden.