Oil in Spits­ber­gen? Oil and gas have been loo­ked for mul­ti­ple times sin­ce the 1960, and not­hing of eco­no­mic value had been found so far. It did not seem a rele­vent ques­ti­on any­mo­re, at least onshore.

Now it seems pos­si­ble that the­re might be oil in rele­vant quan­ti­ties whe­re few would have expec­ted it: natu­ral­ly stored in the coal. The paleo­ce­ne (60 mil­li­on years ago) coal that is mined in Spits­ber­gen has an oil con­tent that is hig­her than usu­al. Was the oil extra­c­ted from the coal and sold sepa­ra­te­ly, then the value of one ton coal might see a signi­fi­cant rise: 150 oil-dol­lars against 70-80 dol­lars from coal sales, based on cur­rent world mar­ket pri­ces. And even the resi­du­al coke might still be sold for ener­gy pro­duc­tion.

The oil poten­ti­al of Spitsbergen’s coal reser­ves is rough­ly esti­ma­ted at 700 mil­li­on bar­rel: not a „game­ch­an­ger“ on the world mar­ket, but poten­ti­al­ly very important for the local mining com­pa­ny, Store Nor­ske. This does not include any reser­ves from coal older than the Paleo­ce­ne. The­re is coal from the Devo­ni­an, Car­bo­ni­fe­rous, Tri­as­sic and Creta­ce­ous in Spits­ber­gen, but the­se have not been inves­ti­ga­ted enough to say any­thing about their oil poten­ti­al.

In any case, the value of the resour­ces would rise signi­fi­cant­ly. This might also make coal seams inte­res­t­ing, that have so far been con­side­red com­mer­ci­al­ly unim­portant.

If this ever beco­mes rea­li­ty, is any­thing but cer­tain: the­re is, so far, no pro­cess available that could be used com­mer­ci­al­ly in Spits­ber­gen on an indus­tri­al sca­le. And any pro­cess would requi­re sub­stan­ti­al invest­ments, some­thing that would pro­vi­de dif­fi­cul­ties for Store Nor­ske, which is curr­ent­ly facing a huge defi­cit. And final­ly, explo­ita­ti­on of so far untouch­ed coal resour­ces would be poli­ti­cal­ly high­ly con­tro­ver­si­al, even in the oil-and-gas-coun­try Nor­way.

Source: Teknisk Uke­blad

The 4th updated edi­ti­on of Rolf Stange’s gui­de­book “Spitz­ber­gen-Sval­bard” (Ger­man ver­si­on) is now available. Many text sec­tions in almost all chap­ters have been updated or added, the­re are many new colour pho­tos, a who­le new page block of 16 pages with text has been added. A new cover makes the 4th edi­ti­on reco­gnizable as a new book. The­re are more than enough updates to make the purcha­se wort­hwhile also for owners of pre­vious edi­ti­ons. Click here for more infor­ma­ti­on about the new edi­ti­on of “Spitz­ber­gen-Sval­bard” (4th Ger­man edi­ti­on).

Tech­ni­cal dif­fi­cul­ties during the print pro­cess led to a delay of seve­ral months during the pro­duc­tion.

The third Eng­lish edi­ti­on (2012) remains of cour­se available.

Sci­en­ti­fic field work on polar bears is usual­ly any­thing but ani­mal-fri­end­ly. Fotos and vide­os from polar bears being cha­sed by heli­c­op­ters have more than once been seen and met with cri­ti­zism. As a per­so­nal obser­va­ti­on, we hard­ly see polar bears any­mo­re that have not been mark­ed by sci­en­tists. Near-cont­act with sci­en­tists, which can safe­ly be assu­med by be a very stressful, if not trau­ma­tic expe­ri­ence, is thus likely to be the rule rather than the excep­ti­on for Spitsbergen’s polar bears.

Recent­ly, a polar bear did not sur­vi­ve the sci­en­ti­fic tre­at­ment. A young male, 2 or 3 years old and phy­si­cal­ly in good shape, was found dead 2 days after anaes­the­ti­sa­ti­on by sci­en­tists at Meodden on Edgeøya. A pos­si­ble expl­ana­ti­on is that the ani­mal has moved from a side­way posi­ti­on. It was found lying on the sto­mach and had suf­fo­ca­ted. Anaes­the­ti­sa­ted polar bears are left behind lying on the side to pre­vent suf­fo­ca­ti­on, but they are not moni­to­red. Suf­fo­ca­ti­on after chan­ging the posi­ti­on or pre­da­ti­on by other bears can accor­din­gly never be excluded.

Source: Sval­bard­pos­ten

Ny Åle­sund has recei­ved con­sider­a­b­ly fewer tou­rists in 2013, com­pared to the 2012 sea­son. A year ago, visi­tors num­be­red near 40,000. This figu­re decre­sed to 25,000 in 2013. Accor­ding to the direc­tor of the owner com­pa­ny, the con­se­quence was a loss of 2 mil­li­on Nor­we­gi­an Kro­ner in har­bour fees and sou­ve­nir sales.

The reason is belie­ved to be the expen­si­ve com­pul­so­ry pilo­ta­ge, which is curr­ent­ly being intro­du­ced step­wi­se, and the ban of hea­vy oil as ship fuel, alt­hough ships using hea­vy oil may still visit Ny Åle­sund and Mag­da­le­nefjord until 2014.

Source: Heg­nar (Nor­we­gi­an news web­site)

The Green­land shark is the unknown big ani­mal in mari­ne arc­tic eco­lo­gy. Until recent­ly, sci­en­tists have not spent too much atten­ti­on to this lar­ge shark, and litt­le is accor­din­gly known about them. But during a sci­en­ti­fic catch in Kongsfjord some years ago, sur­pri­sing num­bers were caught: dozens of sharks in a short time. They can be up to 7 m long, which places them among­st the lar­gest sharks in the world.

Sur­pri­sing was not only the num­ber of sharks pre­sent in the bot­tom waters of Kongsfjord, but also the high levels of long-lived envi­ron­men­tal toxins, which equal the high con­cen­tra­ti­ons sad­ly known from polar bears in Spits­ber­gen.

Ano­ther sur­pri­se was their diet: the sto­mach con­tent was most­ly fish and seals. Appear­ent­ly, they are effi­ci­ent hun­ters and not just sca­ven­gers, as had been belie­ved until then. The diet is likely to be the reason for the high levels of con­ta­mi­nants, which accu­mu­la­te through the food chain and over time. The long life span of Green­land sharks may accor­din­gly be ano­ther con­tri­bu­ting fac­tor to the high level of con­ta­mi­na­ti­on. During the rese­arch catch, the big­gest indi­vi­du­al caught was as hea­vy as 700 kg, but not even old enough to repro­du­ce.

Source: Nor­we­gi­an Polar Insti­tut