This journal is currently happening from an upstairs corner of the Oslo airport, tucked away from the bustle with a daypack barricade. As is usual for this type of travel, one has a tendency to forget which day it actually is as everything seems to flow sleeplessly from one event to the other. Pick these bags up, put these down, smile at the customs agent…you know the deal. This being our first big layover (~8 hrs) we all are taking some time to recharge the batteries.
My makeshift Oslo work station. Tile provides little in the way of comfort but the location is nice.
Meetings and greetings went excellent yesterday at Logan Airport with Mike and I meeting the crew that had gotten together at Steve's in Massachusetts the day previous. The team looked eager, enthusiastic, and frankly like the 'Geo-Avengers' assembled from all corners of the US to combat climate change (I'll refrain from assigning any nicknames…at least this early). The members of the REU team undergraduates include: John Whiting (Whitman College), Kayla Nussbaum (Macalester C.), Mel Reusche (UW-Madison), Helena Tiedmann (Beloit C.), and Dion Obermeyer (Northern Arizona U.). From what I've seen thus far you could't ask for a better crew and I look forward to us integrating with our UNIS counterparts in the days to come.
The slow-changing progress monitor from Iceland to Norway...go plane!
Flights have gone smoothly with a brief stop over in Keflavik, Iceland, which is just a bit to the southwest of Reykjavik, then here to Oslo and finally Longyearbyen, Svalbard by around 11:30 this evening. Having gone significantly north and east we are currently operating at a time that is 6 hours ahead of the eastern United States.
Just from the plane ride, views thus far the landscape has been outstanding. Landing and taking off in Iceland, one is presented with a beautiful treeless landscape beneath the fog and clouds. As we flew more eastward toward Norway, the largest glacier in Europe, Vatnajokul, came into view with its outlet glaciers reaching coastward. Helpful Icelandic tip: the suffix -jokul stands for glacier and you may have heard it numerous times in recent history during the eruptions that shutdown much of Europe's air travel roughly two years ago. A jokulhaup is a devastating flood that occasionally occurs when large pools of subglacial meltwater break free from the ice holding it from above, caused often in Iceland by the intense geothermal heat present. The results…lots of water rushing coastward violently.
The view of Vatnajokul from the sky. Note engine...
After a bit of a ride eastward over ocean, the Norway coast then began to show itself. It's at that point I've always find myself wishing that a. the windows were bigger, b. the wings weren't inevitably in the way, and c. that I could stop the plane midair for some sophisticated geo-talk with an at least somewhat interested neighbor. No dice on those accounts but I was able to snap a few decent shots through the port hole. In some you can see the idyllic Norwegian fjords carved out long ago by flowing valley glaciers during the lowered sea levels of the last glacial period. Then, as temperatures warmed the glaciers retreated and with eustatic sea-level (that is sea-level rise in accordance to glaciers giving back to to the global water balance) the valleys filled to become steep walled bays working inland with dendritic arms.
View of Norwegian Fjords
Another area of geologic interest on the western coast was the raised and upturned strata of the underlying coastal bedrock. If one looks closely they can see the old sedimentary layering preserved in the bedrock being turned upward like leafing through the pages in a resting book as you look closer and closer toward the viewers perspective.
Upturned Stratigraphy on Norway's West Coast
One aspect I find quite interesting is how the Norwegian's have assimilated their community infrastructure into the landscape, how roads follow the counter lines or swtich-back down mountain sides. If there is a flat-lying plane adjacent to the rugged terrain it serves as an ideal village center. It is almost like the difference between a cirque glacier and an ice sheet. Like a massive urban metropolis, an ice sheet is defined as overwhelming the topography, not caring what it moves over because of its size. On the other hand, the Norwegian design reminds me of a cirque glacier in that it follows the topography clearly from the mountains sometimes working toward the coast or sometimes being content to remain within the hills. Lest we take this metaphor too far into glacier mass balance and population growth I will stop it here…
Look closely for civilization.
Finally, coming into Norway we encountered trees again and fields that resemble those seen in any formerly glaciated area like Maine or even some I've seen in Austria. Often, as glaciers retreat from an area they leave broad outwash plains draining their meltwater in the form of a braided river. As they get further and further back the velocities of their meltwater can move only finer and finer sediments leaving excellent flat top locations to be used for fields long after they are gone. If you can pick out the white circles in the picture below, those are round bales similar to what one might see at any given summer time back home. Not the best picture but they're there!
I know it is a bit shaky but you can't deny the hay...
The road on from here points to adventure including safety training (oddly enough consisting of the world's northernmost shooting range and jumping out of perfectly good boats), geology lectures, and making ourselves at home on Svalbard for the weeks to come. Take care and wish us luck and hot sauce.
Group lunch outside of Oslo with Dr. Retelle looking menacing. Science is serious stuff. Luckily our undergrads are up to the task.