Glacial geology field trip to Aldegondabreen glacier!

Hello everyone, here is Francesca,

Today I’m going to tell you everything about my very rainy quaternary and glacial geology field trip to Aldegondabreen glacier.

First of all, If you think that glacial geology is going to be very cool and fun because you’ll get to go and explore a lot of glaciers you’re WRONG. Glacial geology in fact, has not to be confused with glaciology. In one you go on top of glaciers to do all the cool stuff, on the other one you go dig holes in mud where once there was a glacier. For everyone in my course this was definitely not a surprise as they’re all enrolled in geology degrees, apart from me, the only one for whom all this glacier thing was completely new. 

After a few very basic lectures about glaciers and  stratigraphy our class left for a 6 days field trip to Aldegondabreen. 

Compulsory photo in survival suits

Once arrived to Barentsburg, a small Russian settlement on the opposite side of the fjord in which Aldegondabreen is located, we had to unload all the gear and luggage we would have needed for the week and go to the hostel. We would have never imagined what expected us: thousands of steep stairs went from the harbour to the “city centre(?)”. Imagine doing those very steep stairs every day not only with your day pack but also with a very big and uncomfortable survival suit on, yeah that’s what expected us for the next 6 days. 

The weather forecast for the week seemed cloudy but still ok. 

The first day we just went on a walk around the glacier forefield to explore those ‘very exciting’ geological features that, to me, just appeared as random lumps of rocks but which were apparently fascinating for most of the people around me. 

The second day it started pouring down in rain… but this didn’t stop us ! we were in the field from 9.30 to 5. We all very much looked like fat penguins while we were standing there, in front of our amazing hole we had just excavated, drawing our logs (which are drawings you do of a sequence of sediment layers) on our amazing waterproof geological field books. 

Crazy geologists doing their thing… o.0

At this point i think it might be the case to give you a bit of background in what kind of humans geologists are. Geologists love rocks and sediments. They like to look, touch, smell and even taste sediment, and I’m not joking, they actually taste sediment it’s a true story, sad but true. Most of them, when excavating holes in the ground, get very very excited when they find the next layer of sediment. They also get vey depressed when the 2 m hole they just dug collapses on itself. Most geologists even have a rock shelf at home where they keep all their favourite rocks. Some of the people in my course are already thinking how they should transport all the amazing rocks they will collect in Svalbard to their home countries. Can you Imagine someone travelling to the other side of the world with a bag full of rocks ?? 

All those facts made me miss biology a lot. As Nick said in the blogpost he wrote, I too get ver excited when I see any kind of marine sediment, shell or marine fossil. When this happens the geologists just smile and nod at me looking at each other with concerned faces, as if I was absolutely crazy. 

Anyways, going on with the fieldwork: after the first traumatic day we expected the second day to be cloudy but not rainy. Well it wasn’t. The weather was so bad that the boat driver decided he couldn’t take us to destination so we just stayed in the hostel and did some theory. 

My group observing the holes we made in a ridge

Third day was also expected to be sunny and warm, but guess what, it wasn’t ! We dug some more exciting holes in other areas of the glacier forefield while standing on steep slopes under which there was a very full glacial river. We also drew some more logs on this supposedly waterproof geological field book. After another good 8 hours in the field we finally got to go back to Barentsburg. Every evening after dinner we gathered together, discussed about the data collected during the day and redrew or rewrote a lot of the things we were too wet to write in the field. 

The fourth day was expected to be the best one, in which we would have hiked up to the glacier front and just wondered around all day. It turned out to be quite a good day indeed. Of course the weather was bad, but not as bad as the other days. We hiked up, looked at some geological features and dug some more holes in the ground with the fairly heavy shovels we carried around all day. We also got to see the actual glacier finally !! Of course the geologists were not very interested in the glacier but they loved all the sediment that was locked in the ice. 

We made it to the glacier front !

The day in which we left the weather was gorgeous of course. Sun all day non stop… The only consolation we got was our professor who told us : “well done guys, I’m very proud of you, you’ve made it trough this very tough under-the-rain field work. Those were the worst conditions we could have worked in so if you made it trough this, any other fieldwork will seem very easy now”. 

We also transported back to UNIS something like 23 bags full of sediments or clasts which we will analyse in the lab and use for our term projects (more to come about that). When I talk about bags I mean that each bag weights something like 2kg or more. With a rough esteem I would say that we transported home something like 50kg or more worth of sediments !

Overall, apart from the rain, the fieldwork was very interesting and informative. I’m learning a lot from this course and even though it might a bit harder for me then for the rest of the class, I’m managing to keep up with the rest of the students so far. 

Well, what can I say… geologists are weird! 

My group observing the holes we just made in a ridge 

Rain (and a bit of snow) all over us