NOVEMBER 7. Dear team and crew: Thank you for your spirit and motivation!
The last Calypso giant piston core came on deck before lunch time. We took the core right in front of Ny Ålesund in Kongsfjorden. The purpose to core in Kongsfjorden was to get a long sequence of Holocene climate variability, the last ca. 10.000 years. The material will provide insight on how climate changed on Svalbard after the end of the last ice age. We ended the scientific program with a BBQ on the Helicopter deck and a visit to Ny Ålesund.
When I started this adventure, I was looking for samples from the seafloor that could tell us a story of climate change in the Arctic for more than 100.000 years in the past. Well, now after 20 days at sea, I know that the Calypso giant piston corer is certainly the tool to provide the material for this story.
We took 20 Calypso cores and recovered more than 300 m of unique material between Svalbard and Greenland.
All material is safely stored in our cooling container and will be transported back to Tromsø by the end of November. The real work will start there! Analysing just one core can easily take the entire period of a doctoral student. This is normally 3 years. So, back to the keyword “patience”. We won’t continue the story before these 3 years are over. Stay tuned.
I wish to thank the Captain and Crew onboard RV “Kronprins Haakon” for all the support to realize our Arctic adventure. It is a pleasure to work with you and your crew. Many thanks to our Calypso team on deck. You made it all happen! Finally, I have a great team of early-stage and senior researcher and engineers. I thank you all for your spirit and motivation during the last 3 weeks.
