At the edge of the world, a voice tries to make itself heard, a whisper slipping between the threads of an unstable reality. In the remote lands of Svalbard, a few hundred miles from the North Pole, lie millennia-old entities, relics of a disappearing species. They murmur in a language that humans today no longer …[Read More]
field stories
Cryo Adventures – Discovering the beauty of polar winter
Only one month after starting my PhD, I found myself in a tiny plane flying over one of the most beautiful and breathtaking landscapes I’ve ever seen. I was on the way to the northernmost settlement in the world – the research village Ny-Ålesund. What I expected from the trip: cold temperatures, darkness, and lots …[Read More]
Fun Cryo Facts – Don’t eat brown snow
Scientist are curious people and we all know that the best discoveries happen by chance, so we always keep our eyes open for the unusual, the new, and the weird things in life. Especially, when we are out in the Arctic doing field work and find unknown brown layers… An unexpected discovery We were out …[Read More]
Cryo-adventures: Ninja goes south – Life and science onboard an icebreaker in the Weddell Sea (Antarctica)
Hello there! I’m Ninja – a curious little LEGO-figure who doesn’t know much about the cryosphere, but who’s learning! Maybe you read about me in the blogpost by ice sheet modeler Petra Langebroek a few years ago? She brought me to the ice-core drilling camp called EASTgrip, on top of the Greenland icesheet. Together, we …[Read More]
Of Polar Bears and Sediment Cores: a Scientific Cruise in the Arctic
Through the scientific excursion part of the University Centre in Svalbard (UNIS) course ‘Arctic Late Quaternary Glacial and Marine Environmental History’, a few lucky grad students got to visit Nordaustlandet, northeastern Svalbard. This is the story of our research adventure in this beautiful, remote part of the Arctic. On a bright and early morning in …[Read More]