Since 9 months I am living on Svalbard now, I saw the sun leaving and I saw the sun coming back but what I saw last week, I have never observed before!!!

As a student at UNIS I have the opportunity to work as a “permafrost research field assistant” and collect data about permafrost conditions with resistivity measurements and monitore of contraction of ice-wedges in Adventdalen. Every two weeks I jump in my scooter suit, take my warm gloves and drive a few kilometers out of Longyearbyen and measure distances between iron rods at ice wedge polygons. Since temperature decreased the last weeks down to -20 to -30 degrees reaching the coldest period of the year (and wind chill values of -52,5 degree two weeks ago in Adventdalen…), we already noticed some increased motion of the ground during the last measurements.

But than, one day, I saw something very special:

The ground opened! A black deep crack, about a centimeter wide and almost 50 cm deep, at least so far down reached my 2 mm thick measuring stick. 25 meters long, side cracks, disappearing under thicker snow covered parts. I was very happy about it, (heart beating!) and realized: I have to continue with the permafrost business! When my sister came for a visit she wondered about my fascinated scetching and measuring out in the Arctic…

By the way, these weeks 25 students from 7 different countries and I join the course “Permafrost and Periglacial Environments” (http://www.unis.no/10_STUDIES/1020_Courses/Arctic_Geology/ag_330.htm), excursions, discussions, seminars about the periglacial universe – a lot work and great fun!!! On Friday we will go out on excursion and dig or rather hack down the cracked wedges to see how far they continue, YIPPIE!

Steffi