I would like to thank first and foremost the Norsk Polarinstitut, Oslo and Bergen, Norway, and the 1986 crew of the RV Lance (Bodo, Norway) for getting our party to Spitsbergen and safely home again, and for providing radio and helicopter support. I would also like to thank the University of Wisconsin Department of Geology and Geophysics for training and then enabling this greenhorn to go to the arctic, an experience of a lifetime. I would also like to thank the National Science Foundation for ten (or more?) years of direct funding of the UW's Spitsbergen effort, and Shell Oil Company for indirect funding. You may not know the seeds you've sown!

Enjoy, learn, and marvel! But please respect (as always) photo credits. Gary Larson once commented that his Far Side cartoons are like his children. I feel the same way about photography.

A cirque, an amphitheatre-shaped bowl scoured by a glacier into the side of a mountain, with a cirque glacier. Legend has it that Beethoven wanted his 9th Symphony performed in a cirque in the Alps.
Photo Detail: View to South of Palanderfjellet (from Observatoriefjellet), Chamberlindalen, Southwest Spitsbergen
Photo and Caption Credit: John Hoaglund
Photo Date: July, 1986

These glaciers are completely covered with snow at the start of the summer melt season. Note several cirques, two icefalls, and a medial moraine formed between and downstream of the icefalls. Also notice a frozen proglacial lake on the north (right) side of the photograph.
Photo Detail: View to West from Palanderfjellet, Chamberlindalen, Southwest Spitsbergen
Photo and Caption Credit: John Hoaglund
Photo Date: Early July, 1986

Same view as before, but at the end of the summer melt season exposing blue ice. Notice some snow (white) has survived the melt season, particularly in the cirques. Notice the proglacial lake on the north (right) side of the photograph is no longer frozen. The equilibrium line between the accumulation zone and the ablation zone can be defined as the snowline at the end of the summer melt season.
Photo Detail: View to West from Palanderfjellet, Chamberlindalen, Southwest Spitsbergen
Photo and Caption Credit: John Hoaglund
Photo Date: Late August, 1986

A meandering stream on the top of glacial ice. Surface drainages are common in the ablation zone of glaciers. Notice a recessional moraine forming at the base of the cirque glacier marking the edge of actively flowing ice. The ice containing the meandering stream is forward of this moraine and therefore may be stagnant (dead) ice.
Photo Detail: View to South of Palanderfjellet's North Slope, Chamberlindalen, Southwest Spitsbergen
Photo and Caption Credit: John Hoaglund
Photo Date: July, 1986

Three alluvial fans forming at the base of the mountains from glacial meltwater drainages. The middle alluvial fan has lichen cover due to inactive drainage. The northernmost (leftmost) and southernmost (rightmost) alluvial fans have active braided streams and are covered with fresh sediment. Notice the cirque glacier, its recessional moraine, and possibly stagnant ice downslope of the recessional moraine. Notice high energy, braided streams on the Chamberlindalen valley floor.
Photo Detail: View to East of Observatoriefjellet and Palanderfjellet, Chamberlindalen, Southwest Spitsbergen.
Photo and Caption Credit: John Hoaglund
Photo Date: July, 1986

Thawing proglacial lake with calving margin of the glacier. Calving has produced a cutface through a medial moraine in the ice. The cutface faces the viewer and the lake. Notice the terminal moraine in the foreground. The lake's color is aqua due to rock flour (non-clay minerals ground to clay-size) suspended in the water.
Photo Detail: View to Southwest along west edge of Chamberlindalen, Southwest Spitsbergen.
Photo and Caption Credit: John Hoaglund
Photo Date: August, 1986

Zoom on a cutface through a medial moraine. Note foliation (layering) in the ice. The foliation is interpreted as shear planes in the ice, moving basal ice and debris upward in the ablation zone. Shearing flow reaches a maximum at the basal depths of a glacier.

Note: In the accumulation zones of some glaciers, layering in ice that has not yet been subjected to shear flow may be a remnant of firn layering. Firn layering records annual accumulations of snow; the snow becomes firn which turns into ice. Some of this layering may remain visible in ice due to interlayered particulate matter (volcanic ash, loess dust, etc.). Though only an occasional annual layer may be visible in ice, successive annual layers have been identified isotopically in ice cores profiling the accumulation zones of the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets near their respective ice divides (Johnsen et. al, 1972). Annual layers were recognized as far back as 8300 years on the Greenland ice sheet by systematic sampling of seasonal isotopic variations. Discrete intervals were sampled and counted, enabling extrapolation of an age/core-depth relationship for the upper part of the core. "Thus in principle dating of the Camp Century ice core by counting annual layers is possible to about the 1,060 m depth, corresponding to 8,300 yr BP according to the time scale which we shall adopt." (from Johnsen et. al, 1972). Shear flow obliterated the seasonal record below 1,060 m on the Camp Century core, but age determinations based on ice flow modelling extended the isotopic record of the remaining core to as far back as 120,000 years. Shearing flow reaches a maximum at the basal depths of a glacier.

Johnsen, S.J., Dansgaard, W., Clausen, H.B. and C.C. Langway Jr 1972 "Oxygen isotope profiles through the Antarctic and Greenland Ice Sheets". Nature, 235, 429-434.
Photo Detail: View to Southwest along west edge of Chamberlindalen, Southwest Spitsbergen.
Photo and Caption Credit: John Hoaglund
Photo Date: August, 1986