Bellsund, Spitsbergen, Svalbard
Our trip from Arctic Svalbard to the fjords of Norway began with a day spent in Bellsund, a deep, glacially-carved gash into the west coast of Spitsbergen. Our first excursion from the ship took place under this mass of folded, twisted, and tortured metamorphic rock, part of the oldest rock of Svalbard. It is known here as the Hecla Hoek series, but is actually part of the great Caledonian fold belt that predates the Atlantic Ocean, when parts of present-day Svalbard, Norway, Scotland, and East Greenland were united. We will hear much more of this later from Jim Kelley.
Here in Bellsund the rock was covered with a green-turning-orange cloak of vegetation. Those navigating in kayaks beneath the cliffs could look up and see, or listen to hear, the cause of this local verdure: hordes of nesting kittiwakes high on the cliffs above. Kittiwakes feed on fish and marine invertebrates from the water of the fjord, and nest on adjacent cliffs. In the process of their coming and going they bring nutrients from the sea to the land. A lush growth of vegetation is a sign of a colony of breeding seabirds above. And this vegetation, in turn, supports a local population of Svalbard reindeer. The productivity of the sea, cliffs of ancient rock, nesting seabirds, lush vegetation, and reindeer ... it all fits together in wondrous ways.
