Expedition: East Greenland 2015

The stay in Constable Point was (thankfully) uneventful. However, our welcome was completed with a warning – “keep an eye out behind you when you are walking around. There is a female polar bear and two cubs hanging around the airport”.

Fog had settled in over the fjord but we were still bright and clear at high altitude. All the specimens were carefully packed and Grzegorz retrieved the now cured silicon mould ready for transport.

Woke up at about 0100 to shrieking wind and the tent flapping. Better check the guys. I was almost pushed over by the freezing wind when I finally got out. All the tents were still standing, but leaning over alarmingly.

Time is running out. We have to split our team in two so that we can achieve both of our Celsius objectives before we leave in three days.

Spent the morning identifying and cataloguing our finds, which all had to be packed in our metal containers for transport back to Sweden.

We had our first look at the rocks yesterday after dinner. We climbed up from our camp at 820 m to the snow line on Celsius Bjerg and fanned out: Grzegorz concentrating on the sandstone blocks to look for footprints; Henning and Ben for outcrops of black shale that mark the Obrutschew Bjerg Formation.

At last!!!! The helicopter set off from Constable Point this morning at 0900 as planned. It stopped at Mestersvig to drop off both Ben and the provisions before flying straight up to Kap Stosch to pick up the project.

Took off this morning at 0900 for Mestersvig. Wind has dropped completely but we now have fog settling in.

Another fine morning in our Arctic paradise… High winds, more rain and low clouds – we were ready to go but increasingly poor weather has kept us grounded.

Wind at 35 knots and reasonable visibility at Constable Point this morning so we took off in the helicopter at 0900.

The weather is against us. I am back at the “Hilton” in Constable Point with a few other scientists, who are likewise stuck because of the storm. Apparently there is a big low-pressure centre hovering over Iceland that is hitting the East Greenland coast with 60+ knot winds and heavy rain.

It has rained constantly for three days. We sat in camp and sorted through our fossils for shipping. Grzegorz ventured out in the rain to take some samples for laboratory analysis.

After a two-hour flight along the coast through a rainstorm I touched down in the town of Scoresbysund at 01.00 in the morning. I did not know what would happen but I was met by a nurse in a two-seater quad bike and driven straight to the small hospital.

Today started well with a plan to head downstream along the Blue River to sample the Permian strata on the coast. We also wanted to see if we could access a large valley called Otocerasdal, which was our last target for the fossiliferous concretion-rich layers.

We worked down river as far as the ice tunnel taking GPS waypoints for the most important outcrops. We located some of the older horizons and found parts of giant ammonite, Otoceras, which would have reached the size of a bicycle tire.

We trekked to the far side of Stensiö Plateau today (approximately 4 km) to find an access out onto the north facing cliffs along the coast. We are again trying to locate the “Stegocephalian horizon” to find more fossils of aquatic temnospondyl amphibians.

Spent the morning resting and packing our fossils for transport back to Sweden. Everything needed to be marked with GPS coordinates, labeled and inventoried so that we have an accurate record for the registers in Uppsala.

Today was exhausting but productive. We decided to tackle our second objective, which was to sample the famous “Stegocephalian horizon” on the far side of Stensiö Plateau.

The sun was out as we set off for our collecting trip. We packed wrapping paper, sample bags and small chisels for our assault on the concretions. We were not to be disappointed.

The weather has cleared but it is still chilly. Yesterday was certainly not wasted. We climbed up the nearest peak and circled round the valley. It is fairly clear that the upper part of the succession is not exclusively marine but rather comprises a complex sequence of shallow near-shore to lagoonal-deltaic and fluvial rocks.

Woke up to the sound of pounding rain on the tent roof. Warm and dry in the sleeping bag, but it means a muddy introduction to the work, or worse being grounded until the weather clears.

We flew in two shifts this afternoon from the Danish military airstrip at Mestersvig. We got to Mestervig first by Twin Otter aircraft from Constable Point and then packed our gear onto the waiting helicopter.

After waiting all day we were finally able to access our equipment and provisions. Everything is in order.