The 2008 Icebound field campaign in stunningly beautiful and extreme alpine North-West Spitsbergen became very successful. Back to Ny-Ålesund and Longyearbyen we could bring lots of rock samples that we’re now eager to obtain dates on. By the beginning of 2009 we should have dates on some of these samples. Spectacular, steep, alpine mountains, - fjords and large glaciers as far as the eye can see. -This is the view you wake up to every morning when you're doing fieldwork in Northwest Spitsbergen.
Photo: Endre Før Gjermundsen
"Austfjorden 2008" was the first field campaign for the Icebound project and Endres’ PhD. Even if several samples were collected and lots of geological and geomorphological sites were visited it was a proof-of concept field work before the more sustained field work in Northwest Spitsbergen this season and the fieldwork in the years to come. We now had a chance to see how well our technical approaches to the sample collection worked and receive first test samples for checking our working hypothesis.