A visit to Mordor – a.k.a. Hornsund, Svalbard
Tuff – tuff – tuff… MS Origo moves slowly thorugh the water, her engine puffing, almost as taking a pause to think and look around between each stroke. She is […]
Category Archives: Crash’n’bang geology
When Greenland met Svalbard: A geological love story
I have teased you like a movie trailer a couple of times now: Akseløya, the tilted hard limestone island. The Festningen profile, where the rocks are tilted into a vertical […]
How to see 170 million years in two kilometres
I am a petroleum geologist for my day time job. Petroleum geologists study sedimentary rocks, because they are the ones that contain oil (sand and limestones) or are the source […]
Fjordblock island: The Upper Permian of Svalbard
I promised you the Permian on Svalbard, after the Carboniferous. Well, the lower Permian on Svalbard was basically the same as the Upper Carboniferous, and 300 million years ago is […]
Geology forensics: That’s my fault, Sherlock!
Geologists love to play detectives. Often, we find rocks that just do not look right, that should’t be just that way, even may seem self contradicting. Enter our inner Sherlocks, […]
Hot water: Wealth from beneath
Iceland. The land of Ice and Fire. Today, more fire than usual, and we geo nerds hope for a long-lasting repetition of the Krafla fires, which played their theatre in […]
A nice fault on the way to work
All my faults are normal, but I can reverse them…is an old joke among us structural geology nerds. But there is no reason to reverse this prettier-than-normal fault, which actually […]
Three peaks and a mystery: A geologist walks Corsica
7 AM. Outside the tent, it’s still dark. Only the rays of headlight torches penetrate the morning mist. Stiff bodies crawl out from light, hence too small, tents. With one […]
Eldfell – the youngster volcano
1:55 AM, January 23rd 1973: – Honey, there is a volcano in our backyard! – Yeah, right, Steingrimur, get back to sleep now! I do not know if this talk […]
Fossil treasures of Denmark, 55 million years ago
When God had finished creating the Earth, He had some sand and gravel in excess. To get rid of it, the story goes, He dumped it in the southern North […]