ARK-XXIV/3, Weekly Report No 1
Geological camp close to Mestersvig; the tents are just being
assembled
In the Kong Oscar Fjord
FS „POLARSTERN“ ARK-XXIV/3
Reykjavik – Bremerhaven
Weekly Report No. 1, 05.08. to 09.08.2009
The first week of our expedition is over! Everybody arrived in good shape in Reykjavik. RV Polarstern left Iceland at August 5th, 18:00, and headed north towards the East Greenland coast. Immediately after the departure, all groups started to unpack the scientific cargo to check for missing items. Because of the short transit (2 days) into our research area all scientists are under time pressure to get all equipment installed before arriving on the first profile.
The primary target area for our expedition is the East Greenland shelf north of 75°N latitude. However, a quick view on the ice charts, which are daily available on RV Polarstern, shows that the sea ice is still too dense to allow a safe accomplishment of our programmes. Thus, measurements in the ice-free Kong Oscar Fjord are done first, with the hope that within the next seven days the ice conditions in the north will enhance for our experiments.
Our activities off East Greenland have several objectives, which will be described in greater detail during the next weekly reports. Our activities in the Kong Oscar Fjord have mainly geoscientific objectives to gather new information on the tectonic history of the margin, details on the current vertical movement of Greenland and the climate history of the last 10000 years.
The geophysical programme starts at August 7th with the deployment of ocean bottom seismometers. The instruments are placed on the seafloor and will record for almost one week the seismic energy which is generated on RV Polarstern as well as natural seismic events like earth quakes. These data will provide new information on the structure of the deep earth’s crust (10-30 km depth).
GPS Antenna in the Eisfjord, East Greenland
Today our geologist group consisting of six persons were flown by helicopter close the Greenlandic landing strip to probe a fresh water lake close to the coast. The lake, only a few meters deep, might contain sediments, which host information about the younger climate history of the Greenland ice sheet and sea level variations. In addition, GPS stations will be deployed at the coast and close to the ice sheet to record the vertical movements of Greenland. These instruments will record the satellite data automatically for approximately one week.
The entire Sunday and Monday is completely crowded with flight activities of both helicopters to transport all cargo, and the recording stations to the different locations some 150 km away. Though we have severe problems with dense fog there are enough flight possibilities that everything is finished in two days.
The weather, however, is less optimal. We sail since August 6th in dense fog. With temperatures between 5-10°C and drizzle we have already typical November weather. The weather conditions improved especially in the inner part of the fjord, which was essential for our extensive flight operations.
Best wishes to the readers at home Wilfried Jokat
August, 09th, 2009 Kong Oscar Fjord 5°C