Ice sheet and Russell Glacier

(Hello to everyone! Back in the USA, but with a lot of catching up to do on the blog front. Sorry, it was difficult to find time to update. I did keep a journal, so I'll be posting from that for the next couple of days. Enjoy!)

July 1st, 11:43 PM

Today was pretty awesome- hit up the Greenlandic ice sheet and the Russell Glacier.

We woke up early and packed lunches for the big field day ahead, along with equipment and warm weather gear (hats, scarves, mittens, etc. Nothing too outrageous). Then we hit the road, Jack- I was in a pickup with Michael, Thomas (DK), Ronin (US), and Skipper (teacher from DK, who drove). Skipper was hilarious! He would stop at every lake to look at ducks with his binoculars, and then think out loud on what species he'd find. If this doesn't illustrate just how exciting Greenlandic wildlife is, I don't know what will.

Skipper also knows a lot about the landscape and its history. He said we were driving on the longest road in Greenland (tentatively referred to as a "highway") ... It was made by Volkswagon, who wanted to make a path to the ice sheet to test their vehicles on the extreme terrain. When the Germans figured out that the ice sheet actually moves every year, necessitating regular alterations to the road, it went into disuse. Lazy Volkswagon.

It was a beautiful, 50-minute drive. There were many lakes along our path, and rolling mountains surrounded us on all sides. As we neared the ice sheet, the vegetation gradually diminished; things grow so slowly here that we were able to tell exactly which areas had been most recently covered by ice.

Once we had arrived, there was a short but rocky hike up to the ice sheet. Rikke (teacher from DK) challenged us to find garnets. Whoever found the largest and most beautiful, she said, would win a prize (luckily for my group, Michael ended up winning. We got ice cream, which tasted like victory). Naturally I didn't find any garnets. It was pretty cool to see all of the small streams trickling down the trail, though. Many of them were frozen or had floating plates of ice, and were a cool frosty blue- almost looked like a flavor of Gatorade or something.

The ice sheet was magnificent. It was a huge field of white stretching as far as the eye could see ...

There were small streams everywhere because it's melting season. Some streams were covered by ice, and others by snow, so some of the smaller ones were difficult to see. I think we all accidentally stepped into the water at one point or another, or slipped on black ice concealed by mud. Despite the terrible danger of falling on your butt, however, everyone thoroughly enjoyed the ice sheet. Even the Greenlandic students had never gone on the ice before.

Each group was given a bamboo stick and a drill. We were to drill a meter-deep hole and then place the bamboo stick into it, to return later and measure how much the surrounding ice had melted. Our group drilled in black ice, but others drilled in white ice, a stream, mud, and snow. White areas have a high albedo, or light reflectivity. Dark areas, on the other hand, have a low albedo. These areas (mud, black ice, etc.) absorb a significant amount of light, which converts to heat energy and causes more melting. Melting on the ice sheet causes a positive feedback loop; when the sheet melts, ponds form on its surface. These ponds are darker than the surrounding ice, and absorb more heat energy. This then leads to more melting, more ponds, more melting, more ponds ...

While we were out on the ice sheet, Britta (teacher from US) and I collected some data for GLOBE, a website that contains information on thousands of locations around the world. We were a little late and then had to power-hike back up the trail to the rest of the group, but those few extra minutes on the ice sheet were worth it!

We drove to a different site, a hilly lake area near the Russell Glacier, where some students from Dartmouth College were waiting for us. They had a biodiversity activity planned, where we split into minor groups and had to hunt for as many species of a certain category as possible. One group was assigned flowers, another had woody shrubs ... When the college students looked at my group, they said, "You look like you need a challenge," and gave us INSECTS. Great. Nothing better than hunting down foreign insects in the Greenlandic wilderness. Our group actually ended up finding 13 species, though- not too shabby! Among the 13 were crane flies, mosquitoes, and ladybugs. We also found snails, caterpillars, a tapeworm, and some fly larvae- yum.

Adding to the excitement, Lynn and Britta showed me tuttu droppings, hoofprints, and even a matching mandible/antlers set buried halfway in the dirt! Actually, we keep finding a lot of animal bones; so few bacteria and fungus can survive here that the bones just sit, becoming bleached by the sun over time. It's a little unnerving.

Oh, and today I fell four times- fall number one was on the ice sheet, into what was probably the only pile of mud on the entire ice sheet. Typical. The second was down those hills by the lake. I came to a gentle, rolling stop, surrounded by a concerned cloud of mosquitoes.

360-view from above the glacier

Anyways, after our little insect hunt we hiked up to a spot overlooking the glacier. It was so beautiful! There were huge, smooth rocks everywhere, carved with striations that told us which direction the glacier had been moving. Rikke pointed out a neat crescent-shaped striation, created when the glacier had skidded across the land. I was really confused at first because the rocks indicated that the glacier had moved west, and yet it sat far to the east! But Rikke explained to me that the glacier HAD moved west, and then had melted backwards to its current spot. How sneaky.

It's hard to believe nature can create something this beautiful.  And don't even get me started on the glacier. (That was a joke.)

Smooth rocks

Half-moon striations.

One thing I think a lot of students are confused about is the difference between an ice sheet and a glacier. I sure didn't know the difference before I went on this trip! An ice sheet is a massive plate of ice that covers over 50 square kilometers. A glacier, on the other hand, is a river of snow and ice that flows away from the ice sheet. And an ice SHELF is a portion of an ice sheet that is suspended over the ocean. A lot of polar lingo, I know.

Credit: NASA

Nanoq, my group, took some data for an EarthCache while we were looking over the glacier. Meanwhile, the Dartmouth students led the rest of the crowd down the mountain, closer to the ice. After we had finished with the EarthCache, my group and I ran down the trail to catch up! One of the proudest moments of my life was running down that mountain, leaping across a field of boulders, only falling once the whole way (3/4) ... I never could have imagined myself doing something like that a couple of months ago. I could never have done something like that a couple of months ago, period.

We reached the glacier and found the rest of the students lounging around, just enjoying the view. I could hardly blame them.

The Russell Glacier

Just chilling. Pun intended. 

Britta gave me some bandaids and moleskine from our yacht first aid kit to help with my hiking boots blisters- I didn't wear them in well enough before the trip. It was here, sitting on the rocks, that Britta declared me Calamity Grace. It was a historic moment.

After a couple of minutes by the glacier, we climbed back up the mountain, grabbed our things, and then hiked down its other side to the cars. Fall number four happened on the way down; I was in pretty sad shape, especially with a nasty ear sunburn from the ice sheet. But it was an amazing field day. Going onto the ice sheet and seeing the Russell Glacier are two memories that will stay with me for the rest of my life. 

We drove back to HQ and had dinner- Thai AGAIN. It was Nanoq's cleaning day, so I also sanitized the bathroom with what was apparently an industrial-grade cleaning fluid (Kasper and I rinsed everything with water, not to worry). But man, was that bathroom clean. That bathroom was immaculate. Absolutely NO bacteria survived. 

Later we watched Lynn's presentation on her trip to Antarctica. It was amazing! I want to go there someday, even if only as an assistant or cleaning lady. Everything seemed so alien, so foreign- like Greenland, but more concentrated! 

Anyways, that's it for tonight. Takuss!