Arctic Ocean

A chunk of ice the size of Amsterdam: how the calving of Greenland’s glaciers has changed since the 2010 Petermann Glacier event

Alka Tripathy-Lang August 4, 2023

Thirteen years ago, a roughly 251 km2 chunk of ice (or 97 miles2) broke off Greenland’s Petermann Glacier. This Amsterdam-sized piece of ice was the largest to calve in the Arctic since 1962. The massive iceberg traversed the Nares Strait, which lies between Canada’s Ellesmere Island and Greenland, and into the northern part of Baffin Bay—the northwestern-most arm of the Atlantic Ocean, before eve ...[Read More]

GeoTalk: meet Céline Heuzé, award-winning Early Career Ocean Scientist!

Simon Clark June 24, 2022

Hi Céline. Thank you for joining us today. Congratulations on winning the 2022 Ocean Sciences Division Outstanding Early Career Scientist Award! Could you tell our readers a bit about yourself and your research? As of just a few months ago, I am tenured! My exact job title is “Senior Lecturer in climatology” at the University of Gothenburg, in southwest Sweden. Originally I am from France, and I a ...[Read More]

Imaggeo On Monday: Under the sea, in the deep, where fire meets water and life emerges III

Hazel Gibson July 13, 2020

650 metres below the chilly waves of the North Atlantic Arctic Ocean, equidistant between Norway, Iceland and Greenland, are the Jan Mayen Vent Fields. Home to a series of hydrothermal vents strung along a set of normal faults and fissures that run parallel to the seafloor ridge, this is a strange and fascinating place. Hydrothermal vents are places where tectonic activity provides a way for the h ...[Read More]

GeoSciences Column: Catch of the day – what seabirds can tell us about the marine environment

Laura Roberts-Artal September 22, 2017

Off the coast of Germany, a male northern gannet (for ease, we’ll call him Pete) soars above the cold waters of the North Sea. He’s on the hunt for a shoal of fish. Some 40km due south east, Pete’s mate and chick await, patiently, for him to return to the nest with a belly full of food. Glints of silver just below the waves; the fish have arrived. Pete readies himself. Body rigid, wings tucked in ...[Read More]

GeoSciences Column: When could humans last walk, on land, between Asia & America?

Laura Roberts-Artal August 25, 2017

Though now submerged under 53 m of ocean waters, there once was a land bridge which connected North America with Asia, allowing the passage of species, including early humans, between the two continents. A new study, published in the EGU’s open access journal Climate of the Past, explores when the land bridge was last inundated, cutting off the link between the two landmasses. The Bering Strait, a ...[Read More]

Imaggeo on Mondays: Polar backbone (Arctic Ocean)

Grace Shephard May 15, 2017

This image was taken during the Arctic Ocean 2016(AO16) expedition that ventured to the central regions of the Arctic Ocean, including the North Pole. It shows a pressure ridge, or ice ridge, as viewed from onboard the deck of the icebreaker Oden. It was quite striking that the ice ridge resembled an image of a spine – sea ice being a defining characteristic of the broader Arctic environment and b ...[Read More]

Geosciences Column: Just a drop in the ocean – river nutrients and Arctic plankton

Sara Mynott July 10, 2013

The oceans are a big contributor to the global carbon cycle, with phytoplankton taking up carbon through photosynthesis and incorporating it into their shells. When these organisms die their shells sink and make a calcareous contribution to seafloor sediments. Of course, with the formation of limestone, this carbon is locked out of the atmosphere for long periods of geological time. Until recently ...[Read More]