Longyearbyen.info

Author: H. Benjamin

Posts by H. Benjamin

Soil creep and tilted stakes

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Beside the road you see tilted wooden stumps. On these stakes, the houses of old Longyear City were standing. In 1943, when the Germans attacked Longyearbyen during WW2, they burned down the houses to the ground. The stakes were standing vertical when the houses were built at the beginning of the 20th Century, and they were probably barely visible after 1943. The fact that we can see tilted poles today, is the result of several permafrost and slope processes: The tilt is a sign of slow downslope-movement of the active

Bench mark Arctic Coal Company

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Longyearbyen was established as Longyear City in 1906 and was run by the Arctic Coal Company, an US-Norwegian company, for ten years. In 1916, the whole area including the established mining infrastructure, was sold to the Norwegian Store Norske Spitsbergen Kulkompani. The first coal mine, the “Ameraican Mine” is still visible above the church. There are many other witnesses of these old days, as for example this bench mark.

Bench mark Arctic Coal Company

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Longyearbyen was established as Longyear City in 1906 and was run by the Arctic Coal Company, an US-Norwegian company, for ten years. In 1916, the whole area including the established mining infrastructure, was sold to the Norwegian Store Norske Spitsbergen Kulkompani. The first coal mine, the “Ameraican Mine” is still visible above the church. There are many other witnesses of these old days, as for example this bench mark.

Rock glacier with ski jump

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The terrace at the foot of the slope behind Huset was used as a ski-jump in the old days. The ski jump, called “Svalbardkollen”, is on a so-called rock glacier which is a common landscape feature around Longyearbyen. Rock glaciers form in permafrost-areas. Meltwater percolating in between the rocks will accordingly freeze at a certain depth and remain frozen for a long time, filling the cavities of the scree completely and thus decreasing the internal friction of the resulting rock-ice-body. The whole mixture can deform under the influence of gravitation

Coal

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One of the best coal outcrops close to Longyearbyen is in Steintippdalen, close to the mine entrance to the old mine 2. The coal seam is cropping out just below a thick sandstone bed. The coal was deposited as peat some 60 million years ago. Even though Svalbard then was situated at ca. 80° North, vast vegetation dominated a landscape that looked so much unlike the one we see today. It was possible to simply walk over to Greenland without getting wet feet because the North Atlatic did not exist

Folding

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Walk along the cliffs just above the road. Pay attention to the different rock types you encounter: layered mudrock, silt- and sandstone from the Cretaceous Carolinefjellet Formation. These sediments were deposited on the sea floor around 115 million years ago. You can find beautiful sedimentary structures and trace fossils. Here, these rocks are folded. They were folded when Svalbard and Greenland collided! In the Early Tertiary, when the Longyearbyen coal was deposited, Svalbard was still attached to Northeast Greenland. Due to simultaneous opening of Baffin Bay and the North Atlantic,

Normal fault

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At this position, one can see a steep normal fault in the mountain side. Normal faults occur when rock is subject of extensional movement and breaks. Further towards the airport, folding and faulting caused by compression is visible. Compressional and extensional structures are often related, with the compressional structures perpendicular to the main stress direction, and the extensional structures more or less parallel to it.

Cretaceous rocks

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Walk along the cliffs just above the road. Pay attention to the different rock types you encounter: layered mudrock, silt- and sandstone from the Cretaceous Carolinefjellet Formation. These sediments were deposited on the sea floor around 115 million years ago. You can find beautiful sedimentary structures and trace fossils. You can also find marine fossils such as shells and ammonites. Look for the „cannon-balls“, round concretions formed by decaying organic material in the seafloor mud. With a lot of luck you can even find fossilized wood here.

Trollstein

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The big rock at the summit of Trollstein has not been placed there by giant Trolls, as the name would indicate – it is rather a part of a sandstone layer which can be found all over the area. It can also be found on the ridges of Nordenskiöldfjellet and Karl Bayfjellet, look around! This sandstone layer, called Battfjellet Formation, lies on top of black mudrocks that are easily weathered, therefore the cliff-forming appearance. The Battfjellet Formation was deposited some 45-50 million years ago as material transported by rivers to

Ice wedges

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The elongated depressions on the tundra hide cold secrets. They are covered ice wedges, forming a peculiar polygonal pattern on the ground. Ice wedges are found mainly on even surfaces. The visible part consists usually of more or less inconspicuous, elongated depressions which are only a few centimetres deep and some decimetres wide, running many metres through the tundra and forming a network of polygons, mostly pentagons and hexagons measuring 10-25 metres in diameter. Occasionally, the shallow depressions become enlarged by small rivers and thus develope into trenches that can