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HomeSpits­ber­gen infor­ma­ti­onIslands: Spits­ber­gen & Co.Isfjord → Yol­dia­buk­ta: Wahl­enberg­breen, Sveab­reen

Yoldiabukta: Wahlenbergbreen and Sveabreen

Glacier landscape in northern Isfjord

Map: Yoldiabukta

Yol­dia­buk­ta is a bay on the north side of Isfjord.

The geo­gra­phy in this part of Isfjord is a bit con­fu­sing: Nord­fjord is a huge branch of Isfjord, loca­ted on the north side and its­elf bran­ching out again seve­ral times. On the west side is Yol­dia­buk­ta, bet­ween Bohem­an­flya in the south and Medi­um­fjel­let in the north. The Wahl­enberg­breen gla­cier rea­ches the shore in Yol­dia­buk­ta.

North of Yol­dia­buk­ta is ano­ther, smal­ler bay bet­ween Medi­um­fjel­let and the flat land of Sveas­let­ta. This bay also has a gla­cier, Sveab­reen. Howe­ver, the bay its­elf has no name, which is pro­ba­b­ly due to the fact that it has only recent­ly been for­med by the retre­at of Sveab­reen.

Sveabreen

Sveab­reen in atmo­sphe­ric Sep­tem­ber light.

Strict­ly spea­king, Ekm­anfjord and Dick­son­fjord, fur­ther north, are also part of Nord­fjord. To cut a long sto­ry short: Here we are loo­king at Yol­dia­buk­ta and its nor­t­hern neigh­bour bay with Sveab­reen. Ever­y­thing else (Ekm­anfjord, Dick­son­fjord) has its place else­whe­re.

Nordre Yoldiabukta, Sveabreen

View from Mus­lin­god­den towards “Nord­re Yol­dia­buk­ta” and Sveab­reen.

It is prac­ti­cal to have a name for the bay with Sveab­reen, so here we will refer to this bay as “Nord­re Yol­dia­buk­ta”, nor­t­hern Yol­dia Bay. Makes sen­se, doesn’it? And while we are at it, we can coll­ec­tively refer to Yol­dia­buk­ta pro­per and its nor­t­hern neigh­bour as “Yol­dia Bays”. I think that will just make things a bit easier.

Southern Yoldiabukta, Wahlenbergbreen

View from Mus­lin­god­den towards “Sou­thern Yol­dia­buk­ta” and Wahl­enberg­breen.

By the way, the Yol­dia­buk­ta got its name from the mus­sel Yol­dia arc­ti­ca, which is now offi­ci­al­ly cal­led Port­lan­di­ca arc­ti­ca. A post-gla­cial pre­de­ces­sor of the Bal­tic Sea was also named after this mus­sel: the bra­cki­sh Yol­dia Sea, which exis­ted 8000 years ago and in which this mus­sel was com­mon.

Geo­lo­gy

Geo­lo­gy is one of the are­as in which the Yol­dia bays can shi­ne. To start with, it is about the fact that sedi­men­ta­ry rocks from the end of the Palaeo­zoic and the begin­ning of the Meso­zoic can be found here, becau­se this tran­si­ti­on bet­ween the gre­at ages of evo­lu­ti­on (which is what the­se ages are more about than the actu­al histo­ry of the Earth) is exci­ting. After all, this tran­si­ti­on was one of the grea­test glo­bal mass extinc­tion events of all time, pro­ba­b­ly the result of uni­ma­gi­n­ab­ly lar­ge vol­ca­nic erup­ti­ons that floo­ded mil­li­ons of squa­re kilo­me­t­res of land with mol­ten lava. Howe­ver, this did not hap­pen in Sval­bard, but in other parts of the world. This glo­bal cata­stro­phe mark­ed the end of the anci­ent peri­od in the histo­ry of life and the begin­ning of the Meso­zoic peri­od in the histo­ry of life: the dino­saurs arri­ved.

The last pha­se of the end of the Palaeo­zoic was the Per­mi­an, fol­lo­wed by the Tri­as­sic at the begin­ning of the Meso­zoic. This gre­at extinc­tion is the­r­e­fo­re known as the Per­mi­an-Tri­as­sic boun­da­ry. Fin­ding a place in the area whe­re the rocks docu­ment the end of the world at that time (which is exact­ly what it was from the point of view of many spe­ci­es) sends a shi­ver down the spi­ne of anyo­ne inte­res­ted in geo­lo­gy! And this is exact­ly what you can expe­ri­ence in the Yol­dia bays, espe­ci­al­ly in the nor­t­hern one, in Lapp­dalen west of Sveas­let­ta. The hills and moun­ta­ins to the west of the val­ley are made up of older lime­s­tone from the Per­mi­an peri­od (Kapp Sta­ros­tin for­ma­ti­on, known from Tem­pel­fjord, Akseløya in Bell­sund, Ahl­strand­hal­vøya in Van Keu­len­fjord, etc.). In Lapp­dalen its­elf, the bed­rock is Tri­as­sic. The­re must be some dino­saur bones some­whe­re! Else­whe­re in Isfjord, bones of mari­ne dino­saurs, such as ple­si­o­saurs and plio­saurs, have been found in exact­ly the­se lay­ers. They can now be seen in muse­ums in Lon­gye­ar­by­en, Trom­sø and Oslo. And if you don’t find a dino­saur, there’s a good chan­ce you will find an ammo­ni­te or a shell impres­si­on.

Fossils Yoldiabukta

Think of all the tre­asu­res you could find in the­se moun­ta­ins:
fos­sil corals, bra­chio­pods, ammo­ni­te and clam impres­si­ons and even dino­saur bones!
But you need to take your time to dis­co­ver their secrets.

For the sake of com­ple­ten­ess, it should be men­tio­ned that the Upper Per­mi­an is miss­ing in Sval­bard. The­se lay­ers may never have been depo­si­ted, or they may have been ero­ded away later. It is like a book from which someone has torn out a few pages. That is bad, becau­se part of the histo­ry is miss­ing. You have to live with it. That’s why geo­lo­gists work all over the world: they look for the miss­ing part of the sto­ry some­whe­re else, you will always find it some­whe­re in the end.

But what will pro­ba­b­ly catch the eye of peo­p­le with less geo­lo­gi­cal know­ledge are the fan­ta­stic struc­tures: Sval­bard was pushed and pres­sed from the west as Green­land began to break away. Both islands used to form one lar­ge land­mass. Or to put it bet­ter: North Ame­ri­ca and nor­t­hern Euro­pe tog­e­ther for­med a huge nor­t­hern con­ti­nent. The North Atlan­tic did not exist at that time. As it for­med, the coasts of the resul­ting oce­an were first squeezed and fold­ed on both sides. This led to the for­ma­ti­on of the beau­tiful fold pat­terns on the west coast of Spits­ber­gen, which here extend as far east as Yol­dia Bays. The defor­ma­ti­on does not con­ti­nue murch fur­ther to the east: Ekm­anfjord is tec­to­ni­cal­ly much less dis­tur­bed, with far fewer folds and faults in the moun­tain sides.

Geology Mediumfjellet, Sveabreen

Geo­lo­gi­cal struc­tures on the east side of Medi­um­fjel­let at Sveab­reen.

Medi­um­fjel­let bet­ween Wahl­enberg­breen and Sveab­reen is par­ti­cu­lar­ly well known among geo­lo­gists in the area for its wild­ly beau­tiful struc­tures, but the other moun­ta­ins, espe­ci­al­ly on the west side of Wahl­enberg­breen, are not infe­ri­or.

I actual­ly thought this sec­tion would be a short three-liner 😄 but it didn’t work out. Never mind.

Land­scape

Rug­ged moun­ta­ins with wild geo­lo­gi­cal struc­tures, two fair­ly acti­ve gla­ciers, morai­ne cover­ed shore­li­nes, exten­si­ve plains in the outer are­as of the shores (Bohem­an­flya in the south, Sveas­let­ta in the north). That’s the short ver­si­on.

Sveasletta and Sveabreen

Morai­ne land­scape on the shore of Sveas­let­ta, view towards Sveab­reen.

The gla­ciers have retrea­ted seve­ral kilo­me­t­res sin­ce the ‘Litt­le Ice Age’ in the 18th cen­tu­ry. The lar­ge morai­ne land­scapes on the shores on all sides of the Yol­dia bays are evi­dence of this. In the recent past, howe­ver, both Wahl­enberg­breen and the Sveab­reen have occa­sio­nal­ly advan­ced.

Glacier edge, Wahlenbergbreen

Gla­cier edge of the advan­cing Wahl­enberg­breen (2017).

This beha­viour is cal­led ‘sur­ge’, more about this can be found on the Bore­buk­ta page, as Bore­breen show­ed the same beha­viour around 2023-2024.

Coastal landscape Stavneset

Coas­tal land­scape at Stav­ne­set.

This com­bi­na­ti­on of wild moun­ta­ins and acti­ve gla­ciers, which some­ti­mes lea­ve a lot of ice floa­ting on the water, is a big part of the scenic charm of the Yol­dia Bays.

Coastal landscape Sveabreen

Coas­tal land­scape at Sveab­reen.

And when you look on the map at the wide plains of Bohem­an­flya in the south or the smal­ler plains of Sveas­let­ta, inclu­ding neigh­bou­ring Lapp­dalen, you’ll feel like going hiking!

Aber meist sind es die Glet­scher mit ihren oft akti­ven Abbruch­kan­ten und den in der Bucht trei­ben­den Glet­scher­eis­stü­cken, die zuerst ins Auge fal­len und die Auf­merk­sam­keit und die Objek­ti­ve auf sich zie­hen.

Drifting glacier ice, Sveabreen

Drif­ting gla­cier ice near Sveab­reen.

Flo­ra and fau­na

The­re is not much to see in the Yol­dia bays them­sel­ves. Of cour­se, you can always find a beard­ed seal, a rin­ged seal or the odd wal­rus on the ice. Some­ti­mes a herd of belugas wan­ders through the bay, and occa­sio­nal­ly a polar bear wan­ders along the shore.

Polar bear Sveabreen

Polar bear in nor­t­hern Yol­dia­buk­ta.

But the­re are no per­ma­nent high­lights, such as a lar­ge bird cliff, and the vege­ta­ti­on on the young morai­nes along the shore is spar­se.

Purple saxifrage, Wahlenbergbreen

Pur­ple saxif­ra­ge at Wahl­enberg­breen.

The long, ice-free stret­ches of Bohem­an­flya and Sveas­let­ta are a dif­fe­rent mat­ter: here you will find vast are­as of tun­dra with den­se vege­ta­ti­on, which in sum­mer can beco­me a colourful car­pet of flowers, and of cour­se reinde­er and other typi­cal tun­dra ani­mals roam the land.

Histo­ry

We can keep this sec­tion real­ly brief: the­re hasn’t been much going on here. On the north side of Bohem­an­flya and on the north side of Mus­lin­god­den (the head­land east of Medi­um­fjel­let) the­re is a small trapper’s hut built by Harald Sol­eim in the 1970s. And that’s about it for this area.

Pho­to gal­lery: Yol­dia­buk­ta & Wahl­enberg­breen

Some impres­si­ons of the beau­tiful land­scape: moun­ta­ins, gla­ciers, ice. The first six pic­tures are from 2006, when Wahl­enberg­breen loo­ked very dif­fe­rent from what it loo­ked like during its advan­ce around 2017 and after­wards. That’s why the­se old pic­tures are included, even though you can see that back then digi­tal came­ras hadn’t deve­lo­ped too much from wood­cuts and engra­vings.

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

Pho­to gal­lery: Nor­t­hern Yol­dia­buk­ta & Sveab­reen

Sepa­ra­te for bet­ter over­view: the bay north of Medi­um­fjel­let (‘nor­t­hern Yol­dia­buk­ta’) with Sveab­reen.

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

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last modification: 2025-02-12 · copyright: Rolf Stange
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