After journeying from Plymouth by car, plane, bus, and helicopter, we arrived at Tarfala Research Station in Arctic Sweden on Monday 7th August (a very happy moment for me after a long three years since my last visit!). We were greeted by Tobbe and the station staff and immediately made to feel at home, and began our fieldwork on Monday afternoon by scoping out our field site on and around Isfallsglaciaren.

We have begun our field campaign by collecting samples of cryoconite from the surface of Isfallsglaciaren, and taking sediment samples from the proglacial stream outlets, moraines, and fluted glacier forefield, for eventual analysis back in Plymouth. Isfallsglaciaren has retreated significantly over the past century, leaving behind a dynamic and very beautiful proglacial area, which makes fieldwork here a joy (even the rain couldn’t dampen spirits completely…)!

Processing the samples (drying and separating fine sediments) at the end of the day is a bit of a slow process with so many samples to get through, but we’re looking forward to more exciting field days ahead both on the glacier and when we take the boat onto Isfallssjon to take a sediment core from the proglacial lake. It’s been a great start to our visit so far, and we’re looking forward to the rest of our time here at Tarfala!

This blog post was first published at https://arcticresearch.wordpress.com/ on 9th August 2017 as part of our INTERACT project, “GRASP” (glacier recession as a source of environmental pollutants).