Sunday, November 20, 2005
I know its a bit boring, but as its where we've been studying for the last month or so I thought I'd include some pictures of the interior of the new UNIS building. This is the new reception area. As you can see they like their wood and copper!
Just to give you an idea of what the permanent darkness is like, this photo is looking up at Longyearbyen from UNIS. I think it was taken at about 2 o'clock in the afternoon! It gets a tiny bit lighter in the morning, but that's getting less and less now so its pretty much dark all the time!
We visited Mine 7 as a small field trip in our Geology course, just before we started revising for our exams. It was amazing to go into a working mine. The mining methods are much more modern than the ones that I saw used in Mine 3. Its much more mecanised and they probably mine the coal much much faster than they used to. As you can see we all looked great in our overalls and hard hats!!
For some reason I ended up with loads of pictures of fire that night! The main fuel for the fire was a large pile of furniture behind the sailing club. I'm not sure where it came from originally, but it burnt pretty well! The picture on the right is of Henry, Joe, Heather and Sarah getting toasted by the fire! It was a memorable bonfire night morning!!
These were taken on the 4th of November at the Sailing Club Party. It was really great timing, as we wanted to celebrate bonfire night, and luckily we got to do it in style as they had a big bonfire! The Nordsyssel was also docked at the harbour, just across from where we were having the party on the beach. It ended up being a really good night!
Thought I'd include some nice weather that we've had!! It got a bit windy in Nybyen one Sunday evening!!
This is at the swimming pool in Svalbardhallen. We're all playing kayak polo, which as you probably guessed is water polo, but in kayaks!! Its good fun, but can get a bit brutal! As it was my first time, I was just happy to keep away from the big ruck over the ball, and content to just paddle about on my own! (top right corner!)
These are of the Northern lights! These were the best ones I've seen so far, but I think there have been better ones! It was amazing to see, as you could see them moving across the sky! I think they went on for bout 20 minutes or more! I was trying to use my other camera to get really good pictures, but it decided it didn't want to work! They were unbelievable to watch though!
This is Nybyen and Longyearbyen from Barrack 11 on a fairly clear night when the moon was out, and its amazing how much illumination it can provide when light pollution is at a minimum!
These are of my field work on the rock glacier again. I dug two more pits to assess the depth of the active layer at various locations on the rock glacier, and to describe any interesting features within the rock layer. The ice crystals in the photo just grew on the underside of the rocks at the surface of the active layer.
These are of me in the cave, crawling through into another section, through a very small gap, and then, as I was lying on the frozen meltwater stream. The amount of rock debris in the roof of the cave ice is unbelievable! For my first experience in a cave it was pretty exciting!
There were some wierd structures which I can only describe as ice stalagmites (left) which had formed in the fist large cavern that we went into, presumably forming from meltwater dripping very slowly from the roof. There were also loads of tiny needle-like icicles on the roof of the cave in the thinner parts of the cave. Although I think we broke quite a few as we were crawling through it!
The photo on the left is of Henry sitting on what would be the meltwater stream in the summer. The photo on the right is of the ice in the roof of the cave, containing a lot of rock material completely encased in ice, with tiny icicles all around them.
At the Larsbreen moraine, there's a moraine cave which goes below the rock glacier that I'm studying, and continues right through the moraine, until it reaches the glacier ice! The picture on the left is of Joe crawling through the cave entrance, and the one on the right includes the roof and the floor of the cave just to give you an idea of how small the cave was. In the summer, the cave is hollowed out by a meltwater channel, but in winter it freezes, allowing you to go inside and explore all of the rock and ice.
Friday, October 21, 2005
The last couple of nights this week have been pretty clear and we've had some fantastic views of the moon. As there's not much light pollution, the moonlight is amazing!! This was taken from my barrack looking towards Larsbreen. Because of our location, we can see the moon moving in a circuit of the sky all day.
Check out my scones!!! Olle had been asking me for ages to make crumpets, because he thought it would be great to have tea and crumpets made by an Englishman!!! Crumpets looked a bit difficult to make so I decided to do scones instead!! I was quite surprised at how well they turned out, and how tasty they were!!!Sunday, October 16, 2005
This is the Rock Glacier series up at Larsbreen (on the right) that I'm studying for my dissertation!! They're pretty impressive things!! Huge slow moving bodies of rock debris and ice!! We might be able to see the interior from the cave system at the push moraine!! I dug the hole yesterday to find the depth of the active layer (layer of rock not frozen together by the permafrost!!) It was hard work, but good fun!!!
This is our kitchen in Nybyen!! I'd just given it a massive clean as it had gotten into a bit of a state!!! Was feeling rather proud of myself!! It does look shiny though doesn't it!!!
These pictures are of Nybyen by night and Longyearbyen by night on the way back from Norwegian lessons at UNIS. The nights are closing right in now, and its even darker for longer when we get up!! Its wierd to think It'll be dark permanently dark soon!!!
These little wodden huts are spread all around Longyearbyen, but we're not really sure what they are. I think they might be bus stops, but havn't really seen any buses stopping at them. After going to the pub in town I thought it would be a good plan to get a photo with people waiting at one. So, Joe, Sarah and Heather obliged!
Thought I'd include a picture of UNIS and the Town centre in the snow!! The statue is of a miner carrying a pick axe and replacement axe heads!!
This is in the reception area of the Radisson where Mum and Dad were staying!! Its a nice hotel with some great food!! Great breakfasts!! It was the end of a really nice week seeing Mum and Dad and showing them what life is like on Svalbard!! Especially how eratic the weather can be!!!!
When we went down into the mine we all had to put on overalls and hard hats with head lamps!! We had to take breathing filters in there with us for safety reasons!! We weren't allowed to take any electrical stuff into the mine just in case they caused an explosion!! The head torches were explosive proofed apparently!! In the evening, we visited what's called the wilderness centre for an Arctic Barbeque. It was really great, as we got to try some more reindeer and whale and we were shown a slide show all about the history of Svalbard!! All in all, a really great day!!
Mum, Dad and I went to visit Gruve 3 (mine 3) the day before they left. Its an old mine that's no longer active, and is now used to show tourists about the history of mining on Svalbard. It was amazing to follow the coal seam deeper into the mine. We got to see a seam that had been mined, and got to crawl inside it!! The gap was only just over 1 metre thick and must have been hellish to have to work in!!! We got lots of Svalbard coal thought, mined by our own fair hands!!
Mum and Dad came to visit a week ago and the weather while thay were here was horendous!! On Friday when they came up to Nybyen for dinner there was the worst blizzard I've seen so far!!! And it went on for ages!! There was nearly a complete white out on the way to Nybyen (on the right!!)
The theme of the Ice Breaker Party was Under Sea. I was an ice berg!! As you can see it wasn't a great costume, but other people had some brilliant ones!! Mark and Amanda who are on the ERASMUS exchange in Denmark came to visit and joined in on all the festivities!!
So that we could get to know people from other courses at UNIS, there was a large party called the ICE BREAKER!! It was pretty swish, with everything organised by the students, including the food, decorating, bar staff etc. I was in the decoraton group, so helped to make lots of the tin foil sea creatures hanging from the roof!! Unfortunately as I got back late from Bjorndalen and so I missed the actual decorating of UNIS. It wasn't all bad though as we got to bring in the beer!!
Bjorndalen in the light of day!! It looked quite nice really! Because there was no fresh water, we had to bring all the water from Nybyen!! As there wasn't much left to do the washing up I tried melting some sonw on the stove!! After the fire got going, I found the chimney was quite warm so decided to give it a hug!! We never did use the melted snow...
This is the cabin at Bjorndalen across the valley from Longyearbyen . It can be used by UNIS students for visits into the wilderness. We stayed there the night after arriving there at about eight and being given a welcome drink immediately!! Usual activities occured, such as using binoculars in doors and singing songs very loudly whilst trying to remember the words!! All in all, it was a very nice visit!!
