Emil'janovbreen

Who knows Emil’janovbreen? … exact­ly! 🙂 This is a gla­cier on the east coast of Spits­ber­gen, on the south side of the bay Kval­vå­gen. Accor­ding to the map, the­re was a very small bay the­re – a very typi­cal situa­ti­on in times of cli­ma­te chan­ge and retrea­ting gla­ciers: the gla­cier is retrea­ting and the end morai­ne remains as an iso­la­ted wall whe­re­ver it had been for­med by the gla­cier. If this hap­pen­ed under water, then it may remain as a series of shal­lows, which may still be more than deep enough for ships or they may actual­ly be dan­ge­rous­ly shal­low. Or, if the morai­ne is hig­her, then it may form a pen­in­su­la. This is also what hap­pen­ed fur­ther south, at Croll­breen, whe­re we found a very inte­res­t­ing land­scape set­ting on ano­ther occa­si­on.

We had been hoping for a shel­te­red ancho­ra­ge behind such a pen­in­su­la as we were ente­ring this young fjord crea­ted by the retre­at of Emil’janovbreen with SY Arc­ti­ca II. The fjord is obvious­ly unchar­ted, as it is real­ly very young, geo­lo­gi­cal­ly, just a few deca­des or even years, in the inner­most parts. The gla­cier had actual­ly retrea­ted so far that we had ple­nty of space to anchor safe­ly, and the pen­in­su­la tur­ned out to be a fine area for a litt­le walk.

Next mor­ning, we con­tin­ued across Kval­vå­gen to Bol­tod­den. This is the place with the dino­saur foot­prints. Click here (Bol­tod­den) to have a look around the­re.

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