2007 Lomonosov Ridge Off Greenland Expedition
Daily Log Entries:
Most Recent Entry
August 12, 2007
August 13, 2007
August 14, 2007
August 15, 2007
August 16, 2007
August 17, 2007
August 18, 2007
August 19, 2007
August 20, 2007
August 21, 2007
August 22, 2007
August 23, 2007
August 24, 2007
August 25, 2007
August 26, 2007
August 27, 2007
August 28, 2007
August 29, 2007
August 30, 2007
August 31, 2007
September 1, 2007
September 2, 2007
September 3, 2007
September 4, 2007
September 5, 2007
September 6, 2007
September 7, 2007
September 8, 2007
September 9, 2007
September 10, 2007
September 11, 2007
September 12, 2007
September 13, 2007
September 14, 2007
September 15 & 16, 2007
August 12, 2007
Oden departed Tromso, Norway to begin the LOMonosov Ridge Off Greenland (LOMROG) Expedition. The main purpose of this expedition is to map the sea floor in the region north of Greenland for the claims that Denmark and Canada will make as part of the Law of the Sea. Dr. Darby was invited to participate because of his Arctic experience and expertise in sampling sea ice and sediment coring in the Arctic. He joins the Martin Jakobsson (Stockholm University) group on board Oden and they will map the sea floor with swath bathymetry in greater detail than ever before. This is a very difficult area to reach due to the potential for thick ice and large pressure ridges. Thus the Danish government has paid for the Russian nuclear icebreaker, 50 Years of Victory, to escort Oden through this treacherous polar ice area. This sea floor mapping will hopefully show areas of grounded ice from past ice ages and other features leading to a better understanding of geologic processes in the Arctic. Sediment cores will be collected from several sites to help better understand past climate changes in this area and to show ice drift patterns off Greenland in the past. Darby will also be in charge of collecting dirty sea ice samples from the drifting pack ice. These samples can be analyzed for small grains that, like a fingerprint, can be traced back to their source and thus determine where the ice originated. He will use the helicopter on Oden to locate sea ice with sediment and then land to collect samples.
Currently Oden is at 73° N and 21.5°E heading NW toward Svalbard. Tomorrow morning the ship's helicopter and crew will fly from Longyearben, Svalbard to the ship. The temperature is a balmy 10° C (~50° F) and we have winds out of the south at 19 knts. Sea swell is about 1-1.5 m. So conditions are delightful for the Norwegian Sea where storms are common this time of year. Good thing because, like all icebreakers, Oden rolls quite a bit in all seas.
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August 13, 2007
Oden is transiting the Norwegian Sea and passed Bear Island after refueling at Hammerfest, Norway. Weather is mild and seas are less than 1 meter. Everyone is setting up equipment and preparing for the first stations.
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August 14, 2007
We passed Svalbard and picked-up our helicopter and crew along with 11 pieces of luggage that did not arrive in Tromso with some of our Swedish colleagues. We will be testing equipment for the next day. The winds shifted around and strengthened slightly and we are running 1.5 meter seas dead on as we pass south of Svalbard. Temperatures are finally dropping and are currently below 5 degrees C.
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August 15, 2007
Oden stopped about 30 nautical miles southwest of Svalbard for about 6 hours to test winches and equipment. Both the coring and seismic equipment deployed properly as well as the water sampling device. After this we headed north to the rendezvous with the Russian nuclear icebreaker scheduled for Thursday. We encountered small floes of sea ice. The temperature is currently 3 degrees C or just below 40 deg F and dropping. Seas are calm. Everyone appears prepared for our first science station in several days.
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August 16, 2007
Oden entered the pack ice early this afternoon and immediately spotted a polar bear. Ice conditions are 8/10 with abundant cracks and leads with ice thicknesses around 1 meter or less. Oden was able to average over 5 knts most of the time. Every Thursday Oden serves bean soup and pancakes for dinner, a tradition that everyone enjoys. Martin Jakobsson (chief scientist for coring and swath bathymetry) and Christian Marcussen (chief scientist for seismic surveys) gave a joint seminar on the United Nations Law of the Sea (Article 76) dealing with rules for coastal nations to lay claim to seafloor beyond their 200 mile current zone. One of the prime motivations for this expedition is to map the seafloor for Denmark and Canada in the area of the Lomonosov Ridge north of Greenland and Ellesmere Island.
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August 17, 2007
Today, Oden finally linked up with the Russian nuclear icebreaker, "50 Years of Victory", or rather she linked up with us. After breaking ice at an average 5 knts for a full day we stopped when the Science leader Anders Karqvist and the Captain of Oden, Tomas Arnell flew over to the Russian ship about 8 miles away. A short time later the Russians appeared, backing up to Oden's port side at about 5 knts. Thus, she was able to break ice backwards as fast as we could forward. At 518 ft she is nearly 1.4X as large as Oden (380 ft) and more than twice as powerful at 70,000 hp. After Oden repaired a minor leak in the port shaft seal, 50 Years lead the way at 10 knts to station 1.
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August 18, 2007
The day began with snow and fog and ended overcast to partly sunny with fairly clear visibility. Oden continues to follow 50 Years of Victory at incredible speeds (up to 15 knts). We stopped for 4 hours for a CTD cast to collect water samples in the Amundsen Basin (~4,000 meters deep) and while stopped the ice physics group was lifted onto the ice next to Oden by helicopter. While they were measuring ice thickness and other properties, three of us including Dr. Darby were flown about 20 miles to the sailing vessel Tara. This French/International expedition froze a two-masted sailing vessel into the ice near Nova Zelma, Russian Siberia about a year ago and they have been drifting across the Arctic since. There are 8 people on board Tara but not all of them have been there since the start. They do receive occasional flights for resupply. While drifting, they monitor weather conditions, ice conditions, etc. We took them a new instrument to measure ice thickness and some fresh fruit. Enroute back to Oden, we landed twice to sample sea ice with sediment. Dr. Darby will analyze the Fe oxide grains in this mud that became entrapped in the ice when the ice formed in very shallow water (<30 meters). The Fe grains have unique chemical compositions that allows Darby to match each grain to a source area from the shallow coastal areas around the Arctic. This provides the origin of the sea ice as well as insights into this important transport process in the Arctic.
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August 19, 2007
Typical late summer Arctic weather, mostly foggy, moderate winds 20-30 mph, temperature just below freezing, wind chill of about -20 degrees F. We have been towing deep seismic profiling equipment, a 400 meter long string of hydrophones at 20 m depth and firing air guns every 50 meters distance since about midnight. We are averaging about 3 knts but because the ships don't have enough forward momentum at this speed in 1-2m ice, we get stopped several times. Because of the towed hydrophones, we can't back up. So the Russian icebreaker swings around and breaks a path close to us so that we can move. But even with the Russian icebreaker leading the way, many large chunks of ice, some the size of an 18 wheeler slide into our path and Oden becomes a tug boat pushing thousands of tons of ice. We will be doing this for at least another day. Since early this afternoon, we have been in huge hugh swath of patchy sediment laden ice. Around 2:30 the helicopter was dispatched with Darby and Katarina Gardfeldt from Goteborg University to collect samples of the dirty ice.
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August 20, 2007
LOMROG suffered a minor setback today. At 2 am Oden had a malfunction in one of her 4 engines and was stopped by heavy ice, which has plagued us since we began towing seismic because we have to go slowly and large chunks of ice build up in the Russian icebreakers wake. Oden doesn't always have the speed momentum momentoum to push these out of the way so the Russians have to swing around and cut in front of us to clear the way. We have begun to run into more multi-year ice which is usually thicker and harder than ice that formed in the last year. Multi-year ice over 2 meters is common. We are still running on 3 engines at 10 pm as they work on the fourth. While the temperature hovered just below freezing and winds remained about 5-6 m/s, flying conditions were marginal but the fog lifted enough for several flights to 50 Years of Victory, the Russian icebreaker and one about 2 miles away to a very large patch of dirty ice. We have been passing nearly continuous patches of dirty ice some over 0.5 km wide since the 19th at 13:00 hr. Geir Akse, one of the helicopter pilots spotted one of these floes about a mile away during ice reconnaissance this morning and one student, Daniella Hanslik from Stockholm University and Dr. Darby flew out to it along with Hans Ramlov who drilled an ice core while Darby and Daniella sampled 6 locations within this floe. Mud nearly a cm thick blanketed one small area and there were clam shells and sea weed on the ice indicating that the sediment was incorporated into the ice in shallow water by ice frozen to the bottom. Darby will analyze the Fe oxide grains by electron microprobe, an instrument that can determine the chemical makeup of each grain and use this like a fingerprint to match it back to its source.
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August 21, 2007
Oden reached its farthest north position of nearly 88 degrees N today. Due to heavy ice conditions between this position and the planned route to the Lomonosov Ridge, the decision was made to move south along this area of thick, compressed ice before turning west toward the Ridge. This saves time and money. Oden continues to pass through patches of significant dirty ice and another sample was obtained today, the fifth dirty ice collection area thus far. Including replicates from the same areas, 10 separate ice samples have been obtained. More ice cores were also obtained today. The seismic gear has been stowed and we are now making about 6 knts but occasionally more than 10 knts behind 50 Years of Victory. The weather is nearly unchanged with foggy conditions and winds of 6-8 m/s, wind chill of -12 degrees C and air temperature just below freezing. It snowed rather heavily this morning but much lighter since. Many of the crew are taking advantage of aerobics or yoga sessions as well as the two saunas after work hours.
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August 22, 2007
Oden was in transit to the southwest before turning west to reach the first coring station on the Lomonosov Ridge. This is the topographic high that is of such interest in Canada and Denmark's economic zone claim for the Law of the Sea. There were no data collected save for an ice survey. Although dirty ice was encountered in small patches, the snow made it difficult to see from the helicopter. More snow fell today and the weather turned slightly colder with lots of fog. The ice is drifting south-southwest at about 0.2-0.4 knts and there are noticeably more and larger pressure ridges south of 87 degrees N. Dr. Trine Dahl-Jensen from GUES, Copenhagen gave an interesting seminar on the LORITA project, a seismic exploration of the Lomonosov Ridge near Greenland a couple of years ago. She and her Canadian colleagues spent a month working out of the remote Canadian camp at the northern tip of Ellesmere Island called Alert. They used helicopters and a
twin otter airplane to set explosives at 100 meters depth through ice holes and seismic phones on the ice to record the seismic vibrations from these charges when they returned from the seafloor. This was also sponsored by these two countries as part of their efforts to establish claims that they
hope will extend well beyond the current economic zones. Whether they will pay dividends in resource discoveries in the future is still a good question.
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August 23, 2007
The LOMROG expedition coring finally began in earnest. We reached our first revised coring station on the flank of the Lomonosov Ridge near 86° 54'N and 48° 12'W and took a gravity core of 1.3 m in about 1800 meters water depth. Before that a small dirty ice sample was taken from just off the starboard aft of Oden using a crane cage for lifting crew members overboard. Martin Jakobsson, the chief scientist in charge of mapping and coring volunteered to take the sample amongst rubble created by Oden. Two CTD stations were completed where an array of water bottles are lowered to the bottom and the water column is sampled at different depths on the way up. The physical
parameters of the water column are also recorded. Some open leads in the ice were found on the ridge crest and Oden left 50 Years of Victory to follow these leads south as part of a survey for the next coring site. We obtain better quality data without the bubbles and ice chunks generated by the Russian nuclear icebreaker. Periods of sun intermixed with fog were welcomed and several helicopter surveys and ice reconnaissance were accomplished today. As per every Thursday on Oden, the evening meal was ham and bean soup with pancakes and a small glass of warmed Swedish punch.
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August 24, 2007
Today, early morning snow turned to freezing rain and 8m/s (17 mph) wind. Oden core team had a good day taking one gravity core of about 1.2m in diamicton (glacial till with very stiff clay and abundant coarse material) and a piston core of about 5 m length in strata near the ridge crest but in
deeper water than the earlier gravity core so that no obvious diamicton was encountered. This is because the glacial ice grounded in the shallower depth depositing glacial deposits. As a little touch of excitement, there was a fire alarm around 9 tonight but it turned out to be false. Apparently
smoke exhaust smoke was sucked into an open hatch. Everyone had to assemble on the helicopter pad, even those of us who were in the sauna. Made for some interesting attire on the flight deck.
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August 25, 2007
Oden is in transit between stations except for a quick 1 hr stop around 7pm for a CTD station to measure the physical properties of the water column and collect water samples for analysis. LOMROG may have suffered a setback today when the Russians informed us that they could not extend our option for another 10 days of escort. We will get a definitive answer on Monday when we can discuss the matter with the CEO of the shipping company that runs the nuclear icebreaker. Without 50 Years of Victory we will probably not be able to operate in the target area off Greenland and have to move to better ice conditions to the east. The ice conditions remain difficult with
extensive and large pressure ridges although the ice thickness is 1-2.5 meters and if there were leads and open fractures in the ice, Oden could manage nicely without 50 Years of Victory.
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August 26, 2007
The weather remains rather warm for the Arctic this late in August with temperatures just below freezing. The melt ponds are beginning to freeze over despite this and new snow has accumulated at least 0.25 meters just in the last several days. The visibility changed rapidly from overcast and foggy to clear and sunny. There were several flights today to do ice reconnaissance and landings on the ice to make physical measurements. Due to the snow cover, no dirty ice has been spotted for 48 hours. The first core from the crest of the Lomonosov Ridge was split open and photographed.
Several people stopped by the core lab to see the core and the exposed layers. The gravity core was 1.175 m long. More coring will be attempted tomorrow morning and there are two other cores that have to be cut open as well. The seismic section planned across the valley in the Lomonosov Ridge where it meets the Greenland shelf began around 8pm and at 10pm, about 200 meters of streamer (hydrophones) were lost. The work continues after they were replaced, but it is very doubtful that we will be able to complete the transect to the Greenland shelf before the Russian icebreaker has to turn around and head to its home port tomorrow. The seminar tonight was on the Arctic Ocean circulation by Göran Björk, Göteborg University, Sweden.
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August 27, 2007
Early this morning the Danish seismic program suffered another loss after a night of relative success. In acquiring 15 km of seismic profiles, the streamer was caught on the ice and broke. For nearly an hour the helicopter tried to pull it free with no success despite some nifty maneuvering by the Russian icebreaker in an attempt to loosen the ice around where it was caught. After giving up the effort and abandoning nearly $100K worth of streamer, the Russians drove right over the segment on the ice, snagging it with a hook and after nearly an hour of delicate maneuvers were able to retrieve most of it. Although it is back onboard Oden, it will need lots of repair. After this entertainment, we attempted to core but the coring winch sprung a hydraulic leak and needed repair. Now we are steaming east out of the target study area because the Russian ship suffered some minor damage to one of its propellers and rather than risk further damage working in such difficult ice they decided to return to Murmansk for repairs before they jeopardize their warranty. They will stay with us until we reach the Morris Jessup Rise where we had intended to do about a weeks worth of work enroute back to Svalbard. If the ice conditions there permit, 50 Years of Victory
will leave us and we will work in this area for about 2.5 weeks doing more extensive surveying than originally planned. We have about 3 days of transit to this area depending on ice conditions. We learned that ice conditions in the western half of the Arctic Ocean are lighter than normal. The USCGC Healy for instance is operating in open water north of Alaska. Unfortunately, we have very tight ice conditions here due to winds and ice drift towards Greenland that is making progress slow, even for our Russian escort.
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August 28, 2007
Today was primarily a transit day for Oden and 50 Years of Victory enroute to the Morris Jesup Rise off northeastern Greenland. There were several flights to the Russian ship and crew from both ships toured the other ship. Some ice measurements were made and three small patches of dirty ice were spotted during an ice reconnaissance in the morning but fog and other factors did not permit sampling. Core logging began in earnest and several core segments were cut open. There appears to be a good diamicton in two of the cores from less than 850 m water depths on the Lomonosov Ridge. These are local sediments that are reworked and compacted by large, thick masses of glacial ice grounded in these areas during a previous glacial interval. The areas of glacial grounding were greatly extended on this expedition and this will help to better define the amounts of glacial ice involved.
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August 29, 2007
Oden continues the transit east to the Morris Jessup Rise with 50 Years of Victory. We awoke to a pleasant surprise, sunshine and unlimited visibility. It remained like this until about 10 pm UTC when the fog returned but while it lasted we all enjoyed the Arctic landscape of jumbled blocks of sea ice, drifted snow, and encrusted melt ponds. The Danish ice physics team was able to make another site survey using the helicopter to get onto the ice and the social event of the expedition thus far was the reception/party thrown by Oden for the officers of the Russian icebreaker last night. The chief engineer from Pobeda (Russian for "Victory") provided most of the entertainment with his accordion. There ensued much dancing and celebration for the cooperation between ships and countries. A total of about 15 crew members including two women flew over to Oden from Pobeda for the celebration.
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August 30, 2007
Oden is still transiting through tough ice making an average of about 3 knts. We are still getting stuck on large pressure ridges even in Pobeda's wake. She then has to either back up to us to flush the ice out from in front of us or circle around behind us and pass us close to break the ice nearby.
The ice group was out on the ice again today and the coring group opened another core to photograph and describe. As of 7 pm, we still have 70 nautical miles to the Morris Jessup Rise and we still don't know if ice conditions there will allow us to work in that area alone. If not, we will have to move farther east toward the ice margin and work on the Yermack Plateau off Svalbard. Everyone is hopeful that we will be able to operate on the Morris Jessup Rise area without Pobeda, the Russian nuclear icebreaker. She will continue onto Murmansk, Russia as soon as our captain feels that we can operate alone. Tonight's seminar was by Rene Forsberg of the Danish Space Institute. He talked about how sea ice thickness is determined, especially via remote means such as airplanes and satellites.
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August 31, 2007
Since reaching the Morris Jessup Rise off northeastern Greenland and saying goodbye to the Russian icebreaker, Oden has been surveying the Rise and improving the previous bathymetric data, already repositioning a steep slope several km south. Outside of a CTD station to measure the chemical and physical properties of the water column, poor flying conditions prevented any ice work. It has snowed nearly every day for the last week or more and there is at least a third of a meter on the ice. The melt ponds are still visible but they are crusted over with new ice, although temperatures have once again climbed to just below freezing. There is a single elimination ping pong tournament that has been underway for the past several days and it will be interesting to see who the last two contestants will be. More on that later. The coring group finished cutting open the earlier cores and they are all logged and described. We expect to core again Sunday morning after the multibeam and chirp surveys are completed. These map the bottom and show the sub-bottom down to 100 meters below the seafloor. Oden has been performing a rather peculiar dance for these surveys. To get the best data, open water is preferred, so Oden steams as fast as possible to the next open lead and then does a slow 360 degree turn to map the bottom. The multibeam "sees" to either side of the ship for about 6 times the water depth so we are able to map 6-8 km swaths in this manner with very high quality data.
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September 1, 2007
We collected the first of hopefully several piston cores from the northernmost part of the Morris Jessup Plateau. In addition, mapping has revealed details of ice scour and steep slopes, especially facing east. These were probably the result of the separation from the Svalbard area about 40 million years ago. Another ice survey was done for physical properties and another gravity station completed. Oden celebrated the first of September, the first day of the Arctic winter with a traditional Swedish crawfish and shrimp dinner and a "New Year's like" party where everyone made silly hats for the occasion. After drinks in the bar area, everyone retired to the mess for the dinner. Each table sang a traditional Swedish or Danish drinking song and a contest was held for the best hat, which was won by Geir Akse, one of the helicopter pilots who wore a replica of a helicopter tail protruding behind his head with rotors on top. The celebration continued in the bar afterwards for all except the coring group and chemical oceanographers who had to process cores or water samples.
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September 2, 2007
Oden continued to map the northern spur of the Morris Jessup Plateau and one piston core (6m length) was taken in a large 50 m deep gouge made by a very large iceberg. Mapping will continue through the night and two gravity cores are planned for Monday in the compacted shallower part of the Plateau where ice is thought to have grounded during the last or previous glaciation. Sunday was a busy day for the coring and mapping groups but aside from another CTD station, a leisurely day for most. The laundry room was busy.
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September 3, 2007 (Labor Day)
The weather turned a bit colder with high winds today. Low and High for each day is about the same (~-2-3 deg C) or low to mid 20's F. We took two gravity cores today, each about 2 meters in length and both appeared to bottom out in a stiff clay, probably a diamicton or reworked sediments by grounded ice and then compacted. We will leave the Morris Jessup area now and head east to the Gakkel Ridge to test some earlier bathymetry and a possible unnamed volcano. There will be several CTD stations as we make a transect across the Amundsen Basin just north of the Fram Strait. Leonid Polyak is giving a seminar on paleoceanography of the Arctic Ocean this evening.
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September 4, 2007
Oden continues southeast on its transect across the deep Amundsen Basin with CTD stations at more or less regular intervals of about 20 nmi. Ice conditions are about the same and Oden is having little difficulty making an average of 3 knts between stations. It's a bumpy ride most of the time as the icebreaker rides up on each ice floe and then it breaks and slides to the side. Oden uses its heeling system to cause the ship to roll 5-7 degrees to each side as an aid to breaking ice. Folks who are sound sleepers have a distinct advantage, especially when the propellers encounter some ice and the whole ship vibrates so that items dance across tables. All said, modern icebreakers such as Oden are a lot more comfortable than ice camps or other alternative means of gathering oceanographic data from the Arctic Ocean. We should arrive at the Gakkel Ridge sometime late tomorrow or Friday where we plan to investigate an odd pinnacle that appears on the Russian bathymetric data to see if it really exists and what it might possibly be.
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September 5, 2007
Oden continues its transect across the deep Amundsen Basin but at a slower pace due to the length of the CTD stops. The CTD stations take quite a bit longer in water depths of 4,000 meters. The CTD has to be lowered to the bottom and then stopped at several depths on the way back up to collect water samples for the chemists. We now anticipate reaching the Gakkel Ridge and the mysterious volcano by early Friday. The multibeam bathymetric mapping progresses, but the quality of the data is sometimes poor if there is too much ice under the ship or we are moving too fast (>4 knts). The coring group is continuing to cut open and describe cores.
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September 6, 2007
We finally spotted another polar bear this evening. The first one since when we first entered the pack ice around the 15th. This is not surprising because there are few bears in the area of heavy ice because there are very few open leads where seals hang out. We are in much lighter ice conditions
(about 90% coverage) although the ice thicknesses still are around 1.8 meters and up to more than 3 meters. So long as there are lots of cracks and leads for the ice to move out of our way, Oden has little difficulty breaking ice this thick. We are moving at more than 7 knts at times, but with stops for water column measurements (CTD stations), we are averaging less than 3 knts. The temperatures are finally beginning to drop with -5 to -6 deg C today. Winter is about to begin in the Arctic. The ice physics folks were lifted onto the ice by crane today during one of our CTD stations, but other than that there was no other sampling. The coring group is finishing the logging and opening of the earlier cores in preparation for additional coring when we reach the Gakkel Ridge late tomorrow. After this, our plan is to head south to the east side of Greenland where we will survey the continental slope for Article 76 of the Law of the Sea for the Danish government. Once that is completed we will head for Lonyearbyne, Svalbard.
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September 7, 2007
Today we mapped the area on the Gakkel Ridge where the submarine data indicated an unknown volcano, only it did not exist. How can that be you ask? Well one explanation is that when the bathymetry data was originally collected, there was a malfunction in the equipment and it recorded an ever swallowing bottom as the sub advanced. Speculation is that someone then realized that the instrument had drifted off scale and readjusted it so that in the end it appeared that it had mapped a pinnacle-like feature that resembled a volcano. Our data confirms that there is no such feature where the newly compiled bathymetric map of the Arctic shows it to be. Because the feature did not exist, there was no use in trying to core sediments that might have accumulated in its non-existent crater. This evening, Oden's crew celebrated the very first visit Oden made to the
North Pole in 1991 on this date. It was the first non-nuclear icebreaker to visit the Pole. It has made four additional visits, the last being the 2005 stop with USCGC Healy during the HOTRAX expedition, the latest for non-nuclear surface vessels to visit the Pole, Sept. 12. The seminar this evening was by Dr. Katarina Gardfeldt of Chalmers/Goteborg University on mercury in the Arctic Ocean.
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September 8, 2007
Oden is now heading south toward the northeast continental slope of Greenland around 77ºN AND 5ºw. We are currently at 83º16.8'N 0º 41'E at 22:00 (10pm UT). Thus we have about 380 nautical miles to go. The ice conditions have become slightly more difficult and Oden is getting stopped by ridges and thicker multi-year floes so that our progress has decreased to somewhere between 1 and 4 knts. As of yesterday at 13:30 UT when we were at 84º 2.7'N and 2º 22.5'W about 50 miles north of our present position, we spotted the first small icebergs. They are probably from the Russian islands at the northern edge of the Barents Sea, but could be from Greenland or Ellesmere Island (Canada). They are only about 5-7 meters high (above pack ice) and less than 50 meters in length. I counted as many as 15 off in the distance around the ship each time I went to the bridge today to check. The only science was a visit to the ice by the ice physics folks. This evening Oden held a party with friendly competition between the Swedes and the Danes. Each group competed in the following: tongue twisters in each other's language; questions about each other's country; two-man/woman on a team, table-hockey game; hangman with English words but having a connection to Scandinavia such as Yule-log and Danish pastry; and finally using five from each side, a game of speed in getting a rope up one pant-leg then the shirt and out one sleeve, then onto the next team member. Denmark won this last contest despite some interesting maneuvers by one member of the Swedish team. But the overall contest ended in a tie, just like the soccer game played between the two countries today. Everyone had a fun time with a lot of cheering from both sides.
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September 9, 2007
Oden stopped for all Saturday evening until 10:00 UT for maintenance on the shaft. Everyone got a good night's sleep except for the engineers who worked all night. We were supposed to get everyone off the ship for a group photo after breakfast but the weather did not cooperate. Again we are seeing more icebergs than anyone who has been in the Fram Strait this time of year before can remember seeing. There are at least 10 and sometimes 20 good size icebergs up to more than 0.5 km in length within view at any one time. This evening I flew out to sample some of them with Martin Jakobsson and Anders Karlqvist (expedition leader). The first iceberg we landed near was 0.5 km in length and 30 m high. We all climbed to the top for a photo opportunity and along the way found that there was lots of sediment in the refrozen surface ice, probably concentrated from this past summers melt. The second iceberg was smaller (about 200m long and only about 10-12 meters
high). It also had sediment pellets in the refrozen surface ice and both icebergs were sampled in order to determine their source. This will be done back at Old Dominion University using the Ocean, Earth, & Atmospheric Sciences' electron probe microanalyzer. Each magnetic Fe grain extracted
from these and the sea ice samples collected during the first two weeks will be analyzed for its chemical content and this will be used like a fingerprint to match each grain to its source area around the Arctic using the data base developed over the last 15 years at ODU. More on this later. We are south of 83º N and experiencing twilight for the first time since we began the LOMROG expedition. In the next few days, we should be far enough south to have true nightfall.
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September 10, 2007
Preparations are underway for the last week of the LOMROG Expedition. Oden finally made it to the ice margin at 19:00 UT and immediately spotted some walrus. A couple of hours previous, we had seen another bear who just kept off our starboard about 300 meters walking the opposite direction as if we were not there. We are currently surveying the area on the Yermack Plateau near Fram Strait where Healy collected the last HOTRAX piston core in 2005 in order to get more complete swath bathymetry. When Healy was here it was Sept. 26 and there was 10/10 ice nearly 2 m thick. After that we head farther south to the area on the Greenland continental margin that Denmark needs to survey. We are in 2/10 ice to open water moving parallel to the ice margin. I'm surprised we haven't seen more bears along the ice margin thus far. It's twilight and hopefully there will be enough light to see more animal life this evening.
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September 11, 2007
After finishing the multibeam and chirp sonar survey of the Yermack Plateau near the 2005 HOTRAX core site, Oden steamed south to the east Greenland shelf break near 77º N 5ºW to complete a seismic survey for the Danish government as part of their Law of Sea off shore claim for this part of Greenland. The core site survey was needed to complete the survey taken by USCGC Healy in 2005 where ice conditions at that time prevented good quality data. The trip south is partly in 4/10 ice cover to open water as Oden's course is near the ice margin. This ice margin is north south because of the East Greenland current that carries Arctic sea ice and a few icebergs south along its coast toward Iceland. It was a good thing that we sampled the two icebergs on Sunday because we have not spotted any more since early Monday. This is probably because our course took us as far east as 9º E and out of the belt of southward drifting sea ice. During the transit south
several seal sightings were made including one in which more than 30 were together in the water. The twilight conditions noted on Sunday have given way to full darkness as we have crossed 80º N and moved too far south for 24 hour light at this time of the year.
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September 12, 2007
Oden reached the east Greenland survey area this morning and a survey line down the continental slope with multibeam and chirp sonar was undertaken after a CTD station. The multichannel seismic line was then deployed at 19:00 and we are now running west back up the slope toward Greenland. The big event of the day however was the fermented herring party after dinner. Rotten herring or surstromming is considered a delicacy in Sweden, well northern Sweden anyway. If you can get past the smell, those that have tried it say that it doesn't taste that bad. About a dozen people, mostly Swedish, signed up to partake. Most of the rest stayed well clear of the mess during this party.
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September 13, 2007
We began the seismic survey after completing a multibeam transect down the east Greenland continental slope and onto the Greenland Ridge. The seismic line ran toward Greenland. We will do a couple of additional multibeam lines parallel to the first and take a core near the upper slope and that will conclude LOMROG-07. The weather has cooperated and the seas have been calm. Only part of the lines are in ice. Tonight was the last traditional Thursday bean soup and pancake dinner on Oden for this Expedition. I made sure to get the recipe for the soup from Sandra, one of the cooks. It's served with a warmed Swedish liquor and I will surely miss these Thursday
dinners. The homebaked breads have been superb also. First thing after getting back will be to start a diet. Although the dirty ice sampling has concluded and now the seismic work, most folks have not begun to pack. That will begin tomorrow and continue on Saturday and Sunday. Then lab spaces and rooms have to be cleaned. There is a virus spreading around and since it just started a week or so after we had a lot of visitors from 50 let Pobedy, everyone is calling it the Russian flu. The unfortunate ones that have come down with it have a high fever but it seems to pass in a day or
so. The outside temperatures are starting to drop and it has been as low as -7 deg C, especially closer to Greenland. Tomorrow we see how the coring goes.
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September 14, 2007
Oden continues to have problems with seawater leaking in around one of the shaft seals. It seems to be especially bad when the shaft is stopped, so the Captain does not want to risk any further problems and this means that the last coring station (unplanned) and CTD were canceled. We continue to run multibeam and chirp sonar surveys along lines perpendicular to Greenland. Friday evening was the Farewell Party and Dinner. It was a very nicely done affair and opportunity to thank the ship crew for their work in making the science possible and our lives comfortable. The mess crew was especially well appreciated. Everyone received a certificate that they participated on the LOMROG Expedition. The celebration continued in the bar well into the night.
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September 15 & 16, 2007
Everyone is anxious to get to Longyearbyen, Svalbard. We are due to arrive there this afternoon (Sunday) at 16:30 Norwegian time. Saturday was a very quiet day on Oden. There was an organizational meeting with details on departing the ship and getting back into the gate at the dock. Also we received stateroom cleaning instructions and arrangements for eating dinner in town. The main part of town is about a half hour walk from the dock and the airport where most of us will depart Monday is about the same but due to luggage there will be a bus for us. This morning we were greeted by the first sight of Svalbard's mountains and glaciers. There were also several whales near the ship enjoying the sun as much as we. I spent the last few days working on reports such as my part of the cruise report for LOMROG and some other reports that I had as well as some reviews of manuscripts for journals. Today is the first sun we have seen in a while and it is most welcome. Despite some minor setbacks, LOMROG was very successful from my perspective. I obtained some great samples of dirty ice during the first week or two and we did get good core material in an area that has only been visited by ice camps. Now we all have the task of analyzing our samples and interpreting the results.
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