Woodfjord: Wigdehlpynten

Wig­dehl­pyn­ten is a flat litt­le pen­in­su­la in inner Woodfjord. A litt­le known and rare­ly visi­ted place, but sce­ni­cal­ly beau­ti­ful (as the who­le area) on a lovely day like this. Then, the sun­light will bring the colours out and it will make them shi­ne: the moun­tains are car­ved out of Old Red Sand­stone: depo­si­ted as sedi­ment ero­ded from the Cale­do­ni­an moun­tains, which were fold­ed up a good 400 mil­li­on years ago, during the Devo­ni­an (just rough­ly, 350-400 mil­li­on years ago) in lar­ge are­as of tec­to­nic sub­si­dence (“gra­ben”). In this case, it is the so-cal­led Andrée Land gra­ben, after the part of Spits­ber­gen bet­ween Woodfjord and Wij­defjord. The red­dish colour is deri­ved from hema­ti­te, an iron oxi­de.

Pan­ora­ma 1 – Wig­dehl­pyn­ten

A fine sum­mer day in this area, with a blue sky, green tun­dra and red moun­tains, is an unf­or­gett­ab­ly beau­ti­ful expe­ri­ence! If you have a sen­se for this kind of beau­ty …

Pan­ora­ma 2 – Wig­dehl­pyn­ten

The second pan­ora­ma exp­lains the name Woodfjord, ear­lier known as Wood Bay: the name is deri­ved from the lar­ge amounts of drift­wood which come with the cur­r­ents from Sibe­ria across the Arc­tic Oce­an. Good raw mate­ri­al, by the way, to pro­du­ce Spits­ber­gen drift­wood pic­tu­re frames 🙂

←Back