2009-09-09: SVALBARD

Now we are back where we started, anchored outside Longyearbyen. The
expedition has finished and tomorrow we will fly home. It has been a
fantastic expedition, both scientifically and personally. A big thanks
to the crew on Oden and everyone who helped make this expedition such a
success!

2009-09-07: ICE MARGIN

Today we reached the ice margin and entered open water again. It is a
strange feeling because we have become so used to the shaking of the
ship when breaking the ice. Just inside the ice margin we saw a couple
of polar bears encircling the ice breaker on a safe distance, just too
far a way for the best of our cameras…

2009-09-04: POLAR BEAR WITH TWO CUBS

Today Mike Lamplugh came running up to the bridge with a wild expression
on his face shouting “polar bear, polar bear!”. A mother and her two
cubs were walking along Oden for more than an hour giving us ample photo
opportunities before slowly disappearing into the distance.

2009-09-03: ARCTIC ART CONTEST

The scientific program is now more or less finished and we are cruising
South through the pack ice on our way back to Longyearbyen. People are
working on their contributions to the cruise report that will sum up our
achievements. In the evening we arranged an art contest using clay that
we collected when describing and sampling our sediment cores. Over
twenty sculptures were created during the evening, and the work with the
clay obviously released some of the wild imagination stored among the
scientist and crew onboard Oden.

2009-09-01: SURSTRÖMMING

This evening we had the traditional surströmming dinner. Surströmming is
a very special form of herring that divides people into devoted
followers and those who cannot stand it. The herrings are produced in a
way that allows the fermentation process to continue inside the cans.
When the cans are about to explode from the pressure build-up inside the
can, the herrings are ready to be eaten. Opinions during the dinner
varied from “delicious” to “never again”…

2009-08-26: LAB WORK AND DATA COLLECTION

We have now turned around and slowly started to move back towards
Svalbard. The days are filled with laboratory work and data acquisition.
All the cores obtained during the hectic days last week must be opened
and described, and all the equipment must be cleaned and repaired, and
lists be made over things that should be replaced before the next
cruise. There is not much life on the ice here and everybody is looking
forward to the ice margin, the transition zone where the pack ice
gradually disintegrates into the open ocean, because that’s where we
will have the biggest chance of seeing polar bears and seals again.

 
Åsa Wallin is inspecting one of the cores retrieved last week

2009-08-23: NORTH POLE

This evening we reached the North Pole! After a cheer on the bridge we
all went out on the ice for a session of picture taking, flag waving and
various other crazy activities. Mike Lampalugh (Canada) and Uni Bull
(Denmark) engaged in arm wrestling, and after that Ludvig Löwemark and
Benjamin Hell from Stockholm University got a hair cut by Uni, while
Jeff Bowman (USA) was rolling around in the snow. Åsa Wallin and Matti
Karlström (SU) took their mascots for a walk around the Pole. Frisbees
were thrown, shirts ironed and some of us went off chasing the 90°N with
a GPS. All while guards armed with shotguns and rifles were on the alert
looking out for polar bears. After having the obligatory group photo
taken, we went back to the ship's mess for some well deserved hot
chocolate, wine, beer and a late night snack.

Arm wrestling and new har cuts in the North Pole

Snow angels and flag waving!

Watching out for Polar bears!

Well deserved late snack!

2009-08-21: Coring program finished!

Today we finished the coring phase of the expedition by taking two long
sediment cores on the Eurasian side of the Lomonosov Ridge. On the two
last stations curious seals have come close to the ship to find out what
we are doing. Markus Karasti managed to catch one of them with his
camera. The last few days have been hectic, filled with hard work around
the clock. As a result, the coring team is totally exhausted, but now we
will have a day of rest while heading for the North Pole.

Closing in on the North Pole

2009-08-15: Piston coring on the Lomonosov Ridge

After our excursion in the Makarov Basin we are now back on the
Lomonosov Ridge. The Lomonosov Ridge is like a huge underwater mountain
range stretching across the whole Arctic Ocean, from the shelf north of
Greenland to the Siberian shelf. Usually, this ridge rises steeply from
the abyssal plain at around 4000 m up to around 1000 m water. In the
middle of the ridge, only about a degree from the North Pole, there is a
large depression, like a basin within the ridge. The sediments in this
basin are relatively undisturbed and should give us much information
about the climate history of the Arctic Ocean. The coring team worked
for 15 hours and in the end obtained two nice records about 6 m long
before falling asleep exhausted at three o’clock in the morning. 

Matti Karlström and some of the sediment
cores we have taken so far.

2009-08-14: Makarov Basin

Now we have left the Lomonosov Ridge and entered the Makarov Basin in
the Canadian half of the Arctic Ocean. Ice conditions made coring very
difficult because ice floes kept drifting towards the wire when we were
launching and retrieving the corer. Despite these problems we got a
wonderful record of 2.7 m of sediment from more than 3800 meters of
water depth! 

2009-08-12: Coring!

Today we started coring! The first core on top of the Lomonosov Ridge
was a success. We managed to land a over 5 m long piston core which
we hope will reveal many secrets about the evolution of ice and ocean in
this part of the world. When we took the second core in the 2000m deep
basin on the central Lomonosov Ridge we encountered an unexpected
problem. The corer had penetrated so deep in to the sediment that our
old winch did not have the power enough to pull it out again! However,
with the help of the crew on Oden we managed to use the A-frame on aft
deck to raise the core out of the mud, thereafter the winch could be
used to lift the core the 2 km back to the ship.

Foto: Martin Ramsgaard

2009-08-08: Testing the winch

Today we had the opportunity to test the coring winch. Using the gravity
corer’s head as a weight we lowered the weight down to 4000 m water
depth and then pulled it back in to make sure that the wire was spooled
back on the drum in a proper way. Despite some minor problems the test
was successful and we are now eagerly awaiting the first coring station!

2009-08-05

Oden continues to make slow but steady progress through the ice. When we
find open lead systems in the ice, Oden can easily make 8-10 knots. In
contrast, when Oden has to break its way through the more than 2m thick
ice, the speed is often reduced to 1 knot.

Right now we are travelling over the central valley of the Gakkel
Spreading ridge, meaning that we are passing from the Eurasian plate
over to the Laurentian plate.

2009-08-04: Echo sounding on the abyssal plain

Since we left Svalbard, our Multibeam echo sounder has been logging
continuously, with three watch-keeping teams day round. During the first
two or three days, close to Svalbard and on the Yermak Plateau, some
traces of erosion from iceberg and possibly ice shelves were quite
exciting. But since we entered the abyssal plain of the Nansen Basin
yesterday around lunch time, we have seen just see a vast and completely
flat sea floor under 4017-4029m of water. In the last 24 hours we made
it just about 140km northwards – cycling would have been at least twice
as fast.

2009-08-03: In the pack ice

We are now making our way through the pack ice towards the center of the
Arctic Ocean. The helicopter is sent out to scout for open leads in the
ice which we follow in order to avoid pressure ridges that can be
several meters thick.

Today we also got the official expedition T-shirt!

2009-08-02: Core logger preparations

Today we pieced together the multi sensor track core logger in the
sediment lab. The core logger provides down core data on physical
properties such as magnetic susceptibility, P-wave velocity and gamma
ray attenuation. These properties can be used to correlate certain
layers between nearby sediment cores and also tell something about the
depositional environment where the sediment was laid down.

During the day at least three polar bears were spotted!

2009-07-31: The expedition has started!

We travelled to Svalbard where Icebreaker Oden was waiting for us after performing a successful test cruise earlier in July. After spending a night in Longyearbyen we transferred to Icebreaker Oden that lay anchored between a number of cruise ships in Isfjorden. The first day was spent unpacking, testing safety equipment and enjoying the spectacular scenery of Spitsbergen!