Updates from the field!

Greetings from Iceland!

We’ve managed to drag ourselves away from our respective projects to bring you an exciting update from our fieldwork!

Today it has not rained, which is a sharp jarring change from the norm. The past 72 hours it rained so much that Jonny developed gills and is now able breathe underwater without assistance.

This meant that Abii’s stream gauging stations have seen some significant fluctuations in discharge, turbidity and electrical conductivity. Even though both gauging stations are now totally underwater they are still collecting great data which will help us to understand the way sediment is transported from beneath Skaftafelljokull out into the pro-glacial area.

 

John, Jonny and Maz have been spending long days at the snout of Fallsjokull trying to piece together the history of the sub-glacial sediments over which the glacier flows. These sediments deform and change under different glacial conditions and leave distinct signatures in exposed cross-sections of sand, clay and rock. Most of this sediment has also been transported in our hair, clothing, camera cases, shoes and ultimately into our sleeping bags.

Laura’s project took advantage of a great weather day today to re-drill 7 ablation stakes into Svinafellsjokull to measure the effects of debris cover on ice melting. Different thicknesses of debris can enhance or reduce melting and this can drastically alter the speed of glacier advance or retreat.

We plan to head over to the Breida hut in a few days (glaciologists will know) and take sediment samples for study back in the UK.

 

Here’s hoping for more good weather!

 

John, Jonny, Abii, Maz & Laura

Safe, settled and sunburnt at Skaftafell

After 2 nights in Reykjavik stocking up on food and equipment; we are now settled and at our home for the next three weeks – Skaftafell National Park. The views of the outlet glaciers from the campsite are beautiful – we can see Skeiðarárjökull, Skaftafellsjökull and Svínafellsjökull from our tents.

We split up for the journey to Skaftafell. Jonny and Laura went in the car with all the stuff, while John, Maryum and Abii went on the scenic coach tour. The journey was stunning – the coach (and the car) stopped at two spectacular waterfalls (Seljalandsfoss and Skogarfoss), drove past the Mýrdalsjökull ice cap, visited the small town of Vik, and saw other tourist attractions along Iceland’s Route 1. The coach arrived at the Skaftafell campsite at 4pm, and the car arrived a couple of hours later. Base camp was set up and dinner was made by 9pm – and now we are settled and safe in sight of Vatnajokull.

The weather here is temperamental and slightly surprising – when the sun is out the temperatures are high (and we’ve sunbathed) but once the sun goes down the winds are cold and we are in need of thermals!

We have installed 4 ablation stakes at the melt zone of Svinafellsjokull to monitor surface lowering over the coming month and Abii has set up two stream gauging stations in meltwater streams flowing from Skaftafellsjokull. We aim to spend the next 20 days walking, collecting data and enjoying being in an active glacial environment!

Stay tuned for the next post (when we can afford more WIFI)!

2 weeks to go…

Well its nearly here! The days are now speeding by and if anything they seem to be going faster the closer we get. I feel really excited about going back as Iceland’s an amazing country and a great place to work. Last time I was there in 2010 we camped in the Highlands and didn’t get to stay in the south for too long, doing most of our work over at Breiðamerkurjökull, Vatnajökull’s largest outlet glacier when we were there. For this trip we’ll be a bit further west from Breiða, around the corner of Öræfajökull. What’ll be interesting to see is how the glaciers have changed since I was last there; its been two long hot summers since 2010 so they’re bound to have retreated a lot. That been said the outlet glaciers coming off Vatnajökull are so big it’ll probably be difficulty to notice if they had changed! But we’ll see.

Anyway, over the last few weeks I’ve been doing pretty much the same as everyone else – making sure I have all the equipment I need for when I get out there. Personal kit-wise I’m pretty well sorted; just need to waterproof my boots and buy a few more socks (they always go missing!?). Scientific equipment I’m still working on it, but I’m sure it’ll include the most hi-tech and glamorous equipment the department has to offer sedimentologists: a shovel, a munsell chart and a measuring tape among other things.

So I should probably say a bit about my project. The first thing to understand is that the features I’m interested in lie below the micro-scale at the nano(fine)-scale. That probably doesn’t mean a lot so this image may help a bit…

Scales of the universe, with electrons and quarks being located at lower end of the scale (10-18 – 10-30 m) whilst larger stellar objects such as a) galaxies b) and nebula which reside at the other end of the scale (1015 m – 1028 m). Our own sun (c) is roughly 109 m in diameter. 1b shows the dimensional scales of the Earth Sciences. Examples include d) the Earth – moon system (4 x 108 m), e) Longyearbreen glacier, Svalbard, f) an ostracod (10-4 m in length), and g) the internal structure of aquatic flocs (field of view 10-6 m). Adapted from Hochella Jr (2002). Images courtesy of European Space Agency (ESA) (images a – b), the Natural History Museum (image f), and Liss et al. (1996) (image g). Image e was photographed by the author in 2012.

 

So the features I’m interest in are pretty small, and will mainly involve individual clay and silt sized particles which normal sedimentological techniques such as optical microscopy and X-ray computed tomography cant see. The technique I’ll be using to examine my samples at the nano-scale is focused ion beam scanning electron microscopy (FIB-SEM for short). This allows the 3D structure of a material to be determined, being mainly used to help design computer circuits and to examine biological material. FIB-SEM has never been used as a means to examine sedimentary materials so this is all new ground. Anyway that’s enough for now; I have to find out where in the attic my tent went….

 

-Jonny

3 weeks until Iceland

Seeing as Iceland is fast approaching I’ve decided to be more pro-active over the last few weeks so now my kit is almost ready! My favourite purchases have been my mountain boots and tent. I had been looking for months to find the most suitable boots but it was definitely worth the wait as these have a great fit. I’ve been walking around the house and garden to wear them in.

I also tested putting up my tent in the back garden… and I managed to do it by myself!

For my project I will be analysing how glacial sediment has responded to deformation. Sediment deformation is significant process which governs the characteristics of glacier movement and erosion therefore, it is important that deformation sediment is carefully understood. I will be taking field observations and measurements as well as using laboratory techniques for testing clast fabric properties. This will include using x-ray computed tomography and scanning electron microscopy. By using these three techniques in conjunction with each other, this will give an insight into how subglacial sediment deforms in relation to subglacial dynamics.

As Iceland approaches I am keeping on top of reading key papers and buying last minute kit.

 

-Maz

28 days and counting…

The summer seems to have gone so quickly and now we’re a mere 28 days away from the expedition! I’m feeling particularly unprepared, despite spending much of my summer wearing in my walking boots and reading journal after journal…

Testing out my boots walking around town!

For my project, I’m going to be calculating a sediment budget for an area of the glacial foreland and seeing the effects meteorological influences have on sediment movement into, within and out of the catchment. Planning exactly which area I am going to study is next to impossible with the landscape forever changing, so all I really know is that I’m looking for an area between the glacier and the LIA (Little Ice Age) boundary with a suitable stream to study!

Once I’ve found a suitable area I’ll have to map it, before the team and I set up gauging stations along the stream. These gauging stations will have dataloggers to record time series data on stream discharge, temperature and most importantly turbidity. Turbidity measurements will give me data on suspended and dissolved sediment loads in the stream, while I’ll have to manually measure bed load using a physical trap. When I have all this data and information I’ll be able to start constructing a sediment budget and understanding the movement of sediment in the glacier foreland. Then I’ll hopefully be able to find a solid relationship between sediment transport and meteorological influences.

Next week, I’ll be learning how to set up, use and potentially fix dataloggers; skills that that are going to be fundamental in Iceland if I want to get the data I need.

-Abii

Just a month away…

With just over a month away until the expedition, preparations are well under way with firming up specific sampling techniques and testing equipment. Today I purchased my home for the month – the North Ridge Altitude 2 Mountain tent!

Home!

For my personal project, fitting in with the overall aim of the expedition in better understanding the dynamics of temperate glaciers, I will be analysing dirt cones.

Dirt cone on Unteraargletscher, Bernese Alps, Switzerland. Photo J. Alean, 2005.

Dirt cones are actually formed of pure snow or ice covered by a thin veneer of debris, however, it is often thought that they are a conical dirt filled feature – as the name may suggest. They are formed as a result of differential patterns of ablation between the material covered surface feature and that of the bare ice surrounding it.

The project will aim to determine the influence of dirt cones on ablation rates and will also analyse the meteorological effects on supraglacial debris cover.

-Laura 

 

Our overall science plans

The overall aim of this expedition is to collect a range of scientific data which will allow us to better understand the dynamics of temperate glaciers, some of the best indicators of global climate and powerful natural forces in their own right. In order to do this we will focus our studies on two sub-Arctic Icelandic glaciers: Skaftafellsjökull and Svínafellsjökull. These two glaciers originate at the south eastern ice cap of Vatnajökull which sits atop several active volcanoes and contains almost almost 3 billion tonnes of active ice.

Our scientific investigation is split into two main areas; tracking glacial processes and analyzing their signatures.

Two key processes which control the movement of glaciers are ablation (melting) and hydrology (water dynamics). By installing monitoring equipment to measure the impact of various factors such as temperature and sediment cover on these processes, we hope to gain an understanding of how glacial processes respond to changing conditions.

This glacial response leaves signatures on the surrounding environment, often in the subglacial zone. One of the most important areas of study for glaciologists, the subglacial zone is the area between the glacier bed and the underlying sediment. When glaciers move they do not just slide over the land underneath them; complex processes involving water, ice and sediment all act together to control the basic movement of these ice masses. It is the signatures of these processes that we hope to analyse by gathering samples of subglacial sediment.

Practising our sediment sampling in the slightly less extreme environment of North Norfolk

One of the key techniques we will use to study these samples is called X-ray computed tomography or “CAT” scanning; glaciologists are beginning to appreciate the value of this method, traditionally used in medical radiology, to detect tiny deformations and structures in glacial sediment which would otherwise go unnoticed. 

By combining all of these factors together we aim to build up a comprehensive picture of temperate glacial behavior.

The data gathered on expedition will be used primarily for the publication of 3 BSc dissertations and 2 PhD theses while the overall expedition findings will be published in formal reports submitted to the RGS and Queen Mary, UoL. These findings will also be published online, along with blog updates from the field, in an effort to encourage interest and open a dialogue with the public. After data analysis we expect to submit several articles for peer review and hope for publication in order to inform the glaciology community of our findings.

As the 1st of August draws closer we will be updating this blog much more frequently with details of our preparation – stay tuned!

 

John

About this blog

Hello world!

We are a team of 5 Geography students from Queen Mary, University of London planning an expedition to Iceland this summer. We’re hoping to look at some glaciers in the south east using a variety of methods. This blog will be used to record our preparations for the expedition, distribute the results of our work, and will probably contain a lot of pictures of the superb glacial and volcanic landscapes found in Iceland.

This blog is still under construction, so please bear with us while we get it up and running properly. For now, you can read about the team here.