Hardangerjøkulen field 'work'

View from the research centre


What a way to start my PhD! After a week of getting settled into the Physical Geography department at Stockholm University I was straight on a train to Oslo and then Finse to visit my ice cap, Hardangerjøkulen, and try out some geophysical surveying.
Benny (my PhD supervisor) and I set off early on Saturday morning, travelling 9 hours across Sweden and half of Norway to reach Finse via some incredible scenery on the Oslo-Bergen train. Finse is a small town, situated at the base of Hardangerjøkulen, which is not accessible by car and is currently covered in about 3m of snow.
Once there, Adam (one of my lecturers from Leeds) collected Benny and I on the skidoo to whizz us over to the research station where we were staying.
Heading out into the field

We were greeted with a delicious meal of soup, elk stew and chocolate mousse, all cooked by Marit, the amazing cook who provided us with  hearty, Norwegian meals each morning and evening. After this we met the rest of our team: Emma and Siobhan, both PhD students at Leeds; Adam, their supervisor, and James, Siobhan's husband, all geophysicists. Phil also joined us for a couple of days from Leeds, but unfortunately he missed any of the nice weather.
The accommodation was comfy and simple, we each had our own little bunk room and shared a large lounge/study area; for meals we dashed across the snow drifts to the main building.



The view from a seismic line on Hardangerjøkulen
For the first couple of days we were blessed with bright blue skies and still conditions, a dream when working on an exposed ice cap! After this the weather went downhill, meaning a couple of days were assigned to computer work in the shelter of the research centre.
The main work we were undertaking on the glacier was seismic and Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) surveys to look at the structure of the snow, ice and sediments below. This involves a lot of laying out equipment and recording data (sitting on reindeer hides and trying to keep warm).

Getting to the sites involved either a ride on a skidoo, curling up with the equipment in the trailers or, in Siobhan and James' case, a cross country ski trip. Safe to say, the skidoo was my top option! I don't yet have a skidoo license, so was confined to the back seat but fingers crossed, once I've been to Svalbard, I'll be able to be in control.






Trying out Nordic skiing

It turned out that Emma and I could fit into Siobhan's Nordic ski boots, so one afternoon we spent a while stumbling about at

 the bottom of the glacier, trying our feet at cross country skiing. It was a lot harder than it looks! The skis are very thin so balancing was tricky. We couldn't figure out how to turn so down hill consisted of a wobbly snow plough with frequent face plants!





Kjell Magne and I with a mini iceberg at the lake site



As part of my PhD I'm looking the sedimentary features in the foreland of a calving glacier, where the ice flows into a lake. On the second day Kjell Magne (the Norwegian guy in charge of the research centre) took Benny and I to recce the lake site. After skidooing through total white out we reached the lake under clear blue skies. The photo to the right shows a chunk of ice which had become detached from the glacier snout and was sticking up out of the lake.



A rather chilly GPR survey





The site looked fantastic so we returned with the radar system a couple of days later to try and survey the lake floor. While there the wind picked up and snow began to fall, chilling us to the bone. Emma and I kept ourselves busy giving a rendition of Disney songs and hits from the musicals while being tugged along in the little trailer.
At one point, I tried to go to the loo and managed to drop my glove, the wind caught it and I had to make a mad dash across the snow to save it!
We were very thankful for Marit's soup and meatballs on our return, wolfing them down through chattering teeth! Kjell Magne then helped warm us to our core with a good tot of whiskey.


Final field day: James, Siobhan, Emma and Benny




After an incredible week, exploring the Hardangerjokulen ice cap, getting to grips with my PhD study and having a ball with a great team, Benny and I left Finse and took the train back to Stockholm, with a stop off for lunch in Oslo along the way.
A fire on the line meant a bus replacement half way across Sweden but I finally made it back to my AirBnB, 14 hours after stepping on the train in Finse.

If this week has been anything to go by, I think studying Midtdalsbreen and its surroundings is going to be pretty cool!

Back to reality now, spending a couple of days in the sun before returning to some desk work and figuring out what all this geophysical data means.





Seismic team, day 1: Benny, me, Adam and Emma.


The seismic source: a hammer and metal plate
CMP at the lake site: Benny and Emma









Oslo


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