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Department of Earth Science

GLANAM research cruise to the North Sea

GEO researchers will perform a research cruise onboard R/V G.O. Sars, 16th and the 24th of June, for the GLANAM project.

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The group of researchers from Department of Earth Science (GEO) will do their work in the NE North Sea and the Norwegian Channel.

Associate professor, Berit Hjelstuen, tells this about the purpose og the cruise:

The main goal of the research cruise is to continue the mapping of geomorphological features in the Norwegian Channel. Acoustic data and sediment cores have during the last couple of years been collected in the outer part of the Norwegian Channel. These data have unrevealed a system of buried grounding zone wedges which have been formed as the last Fennoscandian Ice Sheet withdrew from the continental shelf. In order to finalize the detailed mapping of the Norwegian Channel paleo-ice stream system the cruise this summer will collect data in the Skagerrak region.

A strong focus will be on collection of TOPAS seismic profiles. Such seismic profiles have a vertical resolution of <30 cm and give a high-resolution image of the upper 80-100 meters of the sediments below the seabed. In addition will bathymetric data (EM302), calypso cores and gravity cores be collected. Sediment cores are crucial for determining ages of the mapped geomorphological features and to understand the dynamics of the Fennoscandian Ice Sheet during the last deglaciation phase.

The research cruise is part of the GLANAM-project and Berit Oline Hjelstuen (cruise leader), Hans Petter Sejrup, Stig Monsen and two master students, Daniel Hesjedal Wiberg and Kristian Agasøster Haaga, will participate from GEO. Two newly GEO-appointed PhD students on the GLANAM-project - Bjørn Morén (from Stockholm University) and Benjamin Bellwald (from ETH Zürich) will also join the cruise.

GLANAM is a FP7 Marie Curie Initial Training Network on the Glaciated North Atlantic Margins. It is funded for four years. Department of Earth Science is the leader of the network and has a leading role in projects focusing on Svalbard and Barents Sea margins.