July 9 2007 Ny-SMAC (Ny-Alesund Science Managers Committee) Seminar
Cambridge, UK, 16-18 October 2007
The International Arctic Research and Monitoring Facility in Ny-Alesund, Svalbard and the International Polar Year 2007 - 2008. A NySMAC seminar is open to all scientists involved or interested in research in Ny-Alesund and surrounding areas.
Hosted by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) and the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) on 16th-18th October 2007 at the Moller Centre, Cambridge, UK
Abstract submission deadline: 27th July 2007
Further information, registration and abstract submission is available at:
http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/Meetings/2007/NySMAC/
July 2 2007 Robotic vehicles in the Arctic
Researchers and explorers will probe the Gakkel Ridge during expedition that begins on July 1. They will be using new robotic vehicles to hunt for life and hydrothermal vents on the Arctic seafloor.
Researchers will use two new autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs)--Puma and Jaguar--in tandem to locate hydrothermal vent sites on the seafloor of the Arctic Ocean. (Illustration by E. Paul Oberlander, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution) .
More information can be found on the project website
July 11 2007 Echoes from the Deep
How much volcanic and earthquake activity is there on the ultraslow-spreading Gakkel Ridge? Scientists have little idea because they have been unable to record earthquakes in this remote region. Large earthquakes on the ridge can be detected by seismometers far away in the global seismic network, but they don’t occur frequently enough to get sufficient data. Smaller earthquakes, magnitude 2 or less, occur several times a day, but they are too small to be “heard” by distant seismic stations. While Oden is in the neighborhood, Vera Schlindwein from the Alfred-Wegener Institute in Bremerhaven, Germany is installing seismometers on ice floes to record some of those mini-earthquakes over several days. She will retrieve them before we leave the area. Even this bit of data will allow her to begin comparing the Gakkel Ridge’s seismicity to faster-spreading, better-documented ridges elsewhere in the word.
July 10 2007 On July 10th 2007 RV "Akademik Fedorov" is leaving St-Petersburg for the expedition "Arktika-2007". This will be the 26th cruise of "Akademik Fedorov" to the high latitudes and and 6th cruise to the Arctic. During the expedition the research will be continued which has already started aboard ice breaker "Rossiya".
During the first stage of the cruise the deep sea expedition will take place, when deep sea bathyscaphes "Mir-1" and "Mir-2" will settle down around the North Pole and around Lomonosov and Gakkel Ridge. This expedition will allow for the first time to study in details the bottom around the North Pole. The expdition will be led by the special representative of the Russian President for the IPY 2007/2008 , Hero of the Soviet Union Artur Chillingarov.
July 30, 2007 Two Russian deep-sea submersibles made a test dive in polar waters on Sunday ahead of a mission to be the first to reach the seabed under the North Pole, Itar-Tass news agency said.
The Russian nuclear-powered icebreaker Rossiya as seen in August 1987
Tass said it took an hour for Mir-1 and Mir-2, each carrying one pilot, to reach the seabed at a depth of 1,311 meters (4,301 feet), 47 nautical miles (87 km) north of Russia's northernmost archipelago, Franz Josef Land in the Barents Sea.
Tass said Mir-1 resurfaced at around 1030 GMT after five hours underwater while Mir-2 spent some more time on the seabed collecting samples.
July 27 Chinese Polar Research During the IPY and Beyond
The International Polar Year (IPY) 2007-08 is a catalyst for nations to significantly increase their investment and level of activity in polar research.
Among those that have risen to the challenge, few are more noteworthy than China, a country that, at a key time in its history and economic development, is in the process of raising its status as one of the leading powers in the field of polar research.
July 24 2007 Teachers and Students on Polarstern HERMES-IPY Expedition
WP10 HERMES to the NORDIC MARGINS, POLARSTERN EXPEDITION
PS ARK XXII/1a ( Coldwater coral reefs off Norway (72° N, 14° E)
29 May-21 June 2007
In addition to the ca. 40 scientists from several countries onboard the icebreaker and RV Polarstern, Subleg 1a to the Nordic Margins was special as there were two high school students from Germany and two school pupils from Norway, who participated under the aegis of the EU-HERMES WP10 Outreach project and coordinated by the Jacobs University Bremen. The school pupils’ participation aims at giving the pupils a practical, hands-on exposure to marine research and to the coldwater coral ecosystems, as well as outreaching to their fellow pupils and general public on land.
July 23 2007 Flagship of Russian polar fleet to conduct research at North Pole
Diesel-electric ship Akademik Fedorov, the flagship of Russia's polar research fleet arrives in Murmansk Sunday, where from it will head for the North Pole, the ship’s captain Vladimir Kaloshin said in a radio report to the Institute of Arctic and Antarctic Studies.
While in the Baltic Sea, the crew took aboard deepwater descent capsules Mir belonging to the Institute of Oceanic Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences and a group of researchers from the laboratory of deepwater capsules.
“Experts on oceanic studies, marine geology, geophysics and Arctic research have arrived in Murmansk from Moscow and St Petersburg,” Vladimir Sokolov, the director of the high-latitude expedition told Itar-Tass.
The St Petersburg-based airline Spark Plus has sent Mi-8 MTV helicopters to provide aerial assistance to the polar cruise.
Sokolov especially stressed the fact that standing at the head of the party is the president of the association of Russian Polar association Artur Chilingarov, himself a much-acclaimed researcher of Artic and Antarctic areas.
The Akademik Fedorov will take to the Pole a party of 85 people. Another group of 50 people will arrive there aboard the nuclear icebreaker Rossiya that will escort the Akademik Fyodorov through fields of never-melting floe ice.
The expedition’s program includes two descents of the capsules in the North Pole area at the end of July.
In the first half of August, the capsules will be transported to the research ship Mstislav Keldysh that will get to the area of Franz Josef Land archipelago by that time.
After that preparations are due to begin for launching another drifting polar exhibition on an ice-flow, Sokolov said.
The Akademik Fedorov is expected to return to St Petersburg October 5.
July 23 2007 By ice floe to the North Pole
At the end of August, an unusual expedition under Russian leadership will leave for the Arctic Ocean. One of the participants is Jurgen Graeser of the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research, one of the research centres of the Helmholtz Association. For the first time in the history of Russian research using drifting stations, a German researcher will take part in the North Pole drifting station NP-35. With his data recordings of the atmosphere, Graeser will supplement measurements carried out by the Russian project partners, who will be focusing their investigations on sea ice, primarily performing measurements close to the ice. Through this collaboration, the project partners intend to advance the currently patchy data situation in the Arctic and hope to gain a better understanding of these key regions for global climate change.
July 19 2007 The first 2007 issue of the journal “Polar Research” is now available
Research in the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard is the focus of the first issue of Polar Research during International Polar Year (IPY). Biology articles demonstrate the moult migration of pink-footed geese, examine sipunculan and molluscan fauna and investigate carbon and nitrogen limitation in the respiration of soil microbes. Using photogrammetry to gauge coastal erosion is the subject of one article, while another uses direct measurements and modelling to assess snow accumulation across the Austfonna ice cap. Rounding off the issue, two essays shed light on an obscure chapter in polar exploration: Walter Wellman’s failed bids to reach the North Pole by dirigible in the early years of the last century. A short piece by the editor summarizes Norway’s, and the Norwegian Polar Institute’s, very strong role in the current IPY.
July 18 2007Abstract Volume Available
"Arctic Forum 2006"
Arctic Research Consortium of the United States (ARCUS)
ARCUS is pleased to announce the publication of "Arctic Forum 2006," a
volume of abstracts from oral and poster presentations at the Arctic
Forum held 25-26 May 2006 in Washington, DC. The theme for the 2006
Forum was "International Arctic Research at a Turning Point: Innovations
and Collaborations for the Future."
For further information and to download the volume, please go to:
