Swedish adventures aka my PhD

In my last post I left you in a far-flung corner of northern Finland as 15 students, Peter, Benny and I prepared to continue our journey northwards up into the tundra of the Varanger peninsular (NE Norway). Since then, I have spent another 10 days flitting between Norway, Finland and Sweden, taking in vast palaeoglacial landscapes and becoming well accustomed to minibus driving along the way. Peter and the students coring a permafrost palsar Many of the days consisted of 300-500 km drives, stopping off at various geologically/climatically important sites as we went along. These included large glacial moraines (mounds of sediment formed at the end of a glacier), permafrost palsars (evidence of frozen ground), Precambrian tillites (glacial deposits from an ice age over 600 million years ago) and an archaeological open-air museum with stone age structures. My job was mainly just to drive and keep the group together on our many hikes but on one evening I gave a quick lecture ...

Opposite the Dublin Conference Centre The sights, sounds and tropical heat of Borneo now seem like a distant memory as I sit here in Northern Finland, having just completed a day hike through Arctic tundra, near the Russian border. I believe two posts back I left you as I was part way through my Quaternary Science conference in Dublin. Since then, I have spent a couple of weeks back in Buckinghamshire, about 10 days in Stockholm, yet another week in the UK, this time including a trip to York, a very fleeting, 3 days in Stockholm and finally, I am now part way through 2 weeks touring around northern Norway, Sweden and Finland (Northern Fennoscandia), teaching students about the polar landscapes up here. Along the Howth Coast, nr. Dublin Dublin was a fun but full on 6 days, with numerous talks to attend, plenty of glacial sedimentologists to catch up with, a poster to present and a huge range of cafes and restaurants to sample; by the end of the week I was quite ready to...