Hornsund: Treskelen

The pen­in­su­la Tres­kelen is cen­tral­ly loca­ted in Horn­sund.

Tres­kelen (or Ter­skelen) means “the thres­hold” or “the bar­ri­er”, a pro­per descrip­ti­on of the peninsula’s shape and loca­ti­on cen­tral­ly in Horn­sund. From here, you have a pan­o­r­amic view over Bre­pol­len, the inner­most bay of Horn­sund, with its sur­roun­ding gla­ciers. You can see the famous moun­ta­ins Bau­taen (“the mono­lith”, towe­ring need­le-sharp and 475 m high over the ent­rance to Bre­pol­len) and Horn­sund­tind, a 1429 m high car­bo­na­te mas­si­ve stan­ding direct­ly on the south shore of Horn­sund. Horn­sund­tind is the hig­hest moun­tain in sou­thern Spits­ber­gen.

The bay Bre­pol­len, the inner­most part of Horn­sund, is now wide-open, but it was com­ple­te­ly fil­led by the sur­roun­ding gla­ciers Stor­breen, Horn­breen and Chom­ja­kov­breen as recent as in the ear­ly 20th cen­tu­ry. The bay Bre­pol­len sim­ply didn’t exist back then. The gla­ciers have left an exten­si­ve morai­ne cover on the east side of Tres­kelen, whe­re­as the wes­tern side has a very struc­tu­red rocky coast­li­ne. The geo­lo­gy and geo­mor­pho­lo­gy of Tres­kelen and sur­roun­dings are impres­si­ve.

West of Tres­kelen is Adria­buk­ta, which has got its own page here.

Pho­to gal­lery: Tres­kelen

As men­tio­ned abo­ve, the geo­lo­gy and geo­mor­phol­gy are very rich in details and small and lar­ge struc­tures, as will be appa­rent from many of the pic­tures in the gal­lery. The moun­tain Hyr­nef­jel­let north of Tres­kelen with its huge upwards-bent fold (“anti­cli­ne”) is an obvious eye­cat­cher, one of many in Horn­sund.

The gal­lery has some more pho­tos than most others, but I guess you won’t mind 🙂

Click on thumb­nail to open an enlar­ged ver­si­on of the spe­ci­fic pho­to.

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