Edgeoya, Svalbard
This afternoon we landed on the south side of Edgeoya, the large island in the southeast part of Svalbard. Named for Thomas Edge, a 17th -Century whaler in the employ of the Muscovy Company of London, Edge “fished” many seasons in Svalbard. The island displays spectacular cliffs on its southern side comprised of Triassic sediments lying horizontally and rising straight out of the sea (the speck on the water is a Zodiac for scale). These sediments are about 200 million years old and were laid down in an estuarine environment characterized by a fauna which inhabits brackish water. The Triassic strata were later intruded by a dolerite sill, which can be seen in the middle of the cliff face. This volcanic layer squeezed between the layers of the thick pile of sediments. Halfway across the cliff the sill turns into a dike and cuts the strata vertically. Higher up it is again horizontal. The environment of Svalbard preserves these spectacular geological scenes in all their stark beauty.
At this landing site, which we had never visited before, another dolerite sill forms a long flat peninsula where we walked on some of the richest tundra we had seen. Svalbard reindeer grazed contentedly a short distance away and one came right over to a group of hikers. On the beach an abandoned trappers cabin and the skeleton of a bowhead whale added to the interest of the site. The trappers had used the jawbones of the whale and the abundant driftwood from the beach to build their cabin. This driftwood comes to the archipelago from Siberia, having drifted across the Arctic Ocean frozen in the sea ice. It was the observation of this occurrence, which led the famous Norwegian oceanographer, Fritjof Nansen, to drift across the polar sea in the ice ship Fram from 1893 to 1896.
In Svalbard every day we feel both the freshness of the environment and the long history of exploration in this northernmost land.
This afternoon we landed on the south side of Edgeoya, the large island in the southeast part of Svalbard. Named for Thomas Edge, a 17th -Century whaler in the employ of the Muscovy Company of London, Edge “fished” many seasons in Svalbard. The island displays spectacular cliffs on its southern side comprised of Triassic sediments lying horizontally and rising straight out of the sea (the speck on the water is a Zodiac for scale). These sediments are about 200 million years old and were laid down in an estuarine environment characterized by a fauna which inhabits brackish water. The Triassic strata were later intruded by a dolerite sill, which can be seen in the middle of the cliff face. This volcanic layer squeezed between the layers of the thick pile of sediments. Halfway across the cliff the sill turns into a dike and cuts the strata vertically. Higher up it is again horizontal. The environment of Svalbard preserves these spectacular geological scenes in all their stark beauty.
At this landing site, which we had never visited before, another dolerite sill forms a long flat peninsula where we walked on some of the richest tundra we had seen. Svalbard reindeer grazed contentedly a short distance away and one came right over to a group of hikers. On the beach an abandoned trappers cabin and the skeleton of a bowhead whale added to the interest of the site. The trappers had used the jawbones of the whale and the abundant driftwood from the beach to build their cabin. This driftwood comes to the archipelago from Siberia, having drifted across the Arctic Ocean frozen in the sea ice. It was the observation of this occurrence, which led the famous Norwegian oceanographer, Fritjof Nansen, to drift across the polar sea in the ice ship Fram from 1893 to 1896.
In Svalbard every day we feel both the freshness of the environment and the long history of exploration in this northernmost land.
