FRAM-2012: Norwegians return to the High Arctic with a Hovercraft for Marine Geophysical Research
Abstract
After four years of testing methods, craft reliability, and innovative equipment, the R/H SABVABAA has embarked on its first FRAM-201x expedition to the highest Arctic. Named after the Inupiaq word for 'flows swiftly over it', the 12m by 6m hovercraft has been home-based in Longyearbyen, Svalbard since June 2008. In this, its fifth summer of work on the ice pack north of 81N, the craft is supported by the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate (NPD) via the Nansen Environmental and Remote Sensing Center (NERSC) in Bergen, and the Norwegian Scientific Academy for Polar Research. FRAM-2012 represents renewed Norwegian interest in returning to the highest Arctic some 116 years after the 1893-96 drift of Fridtjof Nansen's ship FRAM, the first serious scientific investigation of the Arctic. When replenished by air or icebreaker, the hovercraft Sabvabaa offers a hospitable scientific platform with crew of two, capable of marine geophysical, geological and oceanographic observations over long periods with relative mobility on the ice pack. FRAM-2012 is the first step towards this goal, accompanying the Swedish icebreaker ODEN to the Lomonosov Ridge, north of Greenland, as part of the LOMROG III expedition. The science plan called for an initial drive from the ice edge to Gakkel Ridge at 85N where micro-earthquakes would be monitored, and then to continue north to a geological sampling area on the Lomonosov Ridge at about 88N, 65W. The micro-earthquake monitoring is part of Gaute Hope's MSc thesis and entails five hydrophones in a WiFi-connected hydrophone array deployed over the Gakkel Rift Valley, drifting with the ice at up to 0.4 knots. On August 3 the hovercraft was refueled from icebreaker ODEN at 84-21'N and both vessels proceeded north. The progress of the hovercraft was hampered by insufficient visibility for safe driving and time consuming maneuvering in and around larger fields of rubble ice impassable by the hovercraft, but of little concern to the icebreaker. It became clear that to compensate for delayed rendezvous would take up substantially more icebreaker time than initially agreed to. It was therefore decided that the hovercraft would remain in the Gakkel Ridge survey area while the icebreaker would concentrate on its primary mission objective, a Danish UNCLOS survey. The two vessels would rejoin for the return journey to Svalbard in early September. The hovercraft has made continuous ice thickness measurements along its track by a front-mounted electromagnetic survey instrument in combination with a sonic height measuring device. The poster will present the findings of the expedition, and a short video is under preparation.
- Publication:
-
AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2012
- Bibcode:
- 2012AGUFM.C13E0664H
- Keywords:
-
- 0750 CRYOSPHERE / Sea ice;
- 3022 MARINE GEOLOGY AND GEOPHYSICS / Marine sediments: processes and transport;
- 3025 MARINE GEOLOGY AND GEOPHYSICS / Marine seismics;
- 9315 GEOGRAPHIC LOCATION / Arctic region