Nordaustlandet and South Hinlopen Strait Region
So far on this expedition aboard the MS National Geographic Endeavour, Svalbard has been a place of fantastic surprises and speechless moments. In traveling around the archipelago we have stumbled upon some of the most remarkable findings, including arctic fox dens, cracked mud flats of beautiful artic poppies, mammoth walruses swimming around and beneath our Zodiacs, and a plethora of polar bears feeding on a beluga whale carcass.
For Undersea Specialist Dennis Cornejo, and myself as assistant, Svalbard has proven to be as fascinating below the water as above. The water around Svalbard stays relatively the same temperature throughout the year, only fluctuating between 30 - 32°F. Many people assume that these frigid temperatures could inhibit things from growing and sustaining a living. Nothing could be father from the truth, as colder water has an affinity to carrying oxygen, and therefore feeding the small plants that live in the water column, creating food for the planktonic animals, which creates food for the larger animals, and so on. But as one might imagine, the animals that live in these cold temperatures have to be very tough, and good at conserving energy, which is why I like to call them affectionately the “weird and the wonderful.” Strange shrimp, which look like something out of a horror movie, live on the bottom, feeding from the sediments that blanket all. The fish have no swim bladders, causing them to sit on the bottom, motionless and wide eyed, only expending their precious energy when after food or in danger of becoming food themselves. Anemones and worms spout like flowers on the bottom, only to disappear suddenly as they pull themselves into self-made tubes.
Pictured here is a basket sea star, distantly related to the many brittle stars that cover the bottom here in Svalbard. Another strange variation on the norm, this star’s arms branch and continues to branch so that there may be 100 arms at the outer reached, unlike other sea stars which have single arms that extend from a central disk. The basket star is a filter feeder, using these many arms to capture tiny bits of nutrients floating in the water column, and then transferring them to its mouth located at the central disk.
Onward we press, North or South, it does not seem to matter, as we know that we have not yet seen all that Svalbard has to offer, and the more it reveals the more we hunger for more.
So far on this expedition aboard the MS National Geographic Endeavour, Svalbard has been a place of fantastic surprises and speechless moments. In traveling around the archipelago we have stumbled upon some of the most remarkable findings, including arctic fox dens, cracked mud flats of beautiful artic poppies, mammoth walruses swimming around and beneath our Zodiacs, and a plethora of polar bears feeding on a beluga whale carcass.
For Undersea Specialist Dennis Cornejo, and myself as assistant, Svalbard has proven to be as fascinating below the water as above. The water around Svalbard stays relatively the same temperature throughout the year, only fluctuating between 30 - 32°F. Many people assume that these frigid temperatures could inhibit things from growing and sustaining a living. Nothing could be father from the truth, as colder water has an affinity to carrying oxygen, and therefore feeding the small plants that live in the water column, creating food for the planktonic animals, which creates food for the larger animals, and so on. But as one might imagine, the animals that live in these cold temperatures have to be very tough, and good at conserving energy, which is why I like to call them affectionately the “weird and the wonderful.” Strange shrimp, which look like something out of a horror movie, live on the bottom, feeding from the sediments that blanket all. The fish have no swim bladders, causing them to sit on the bottom, motionless and wide eyed, only expending their precious energy when after food or in danger of becoming food themselves. Anemones and worms spout like flowers on the bottom, only to disappear suddenly as they pull themselves into self-made tubes.
Pictured here is a basket sea star, distantly related to the many brittle stars that cover the bottom here in Svalbard. Another strange variation on the norm, this star’s arms branch and continues to branch so that there may be 100 arms at the outer reached, unlike other sea stars which have single arms that extend from a central disk. The basket star is a filter feeder, using these many arms to capture tiny bits of nutrients floating in the water column, and then transferring them to its mouth located at the central disk.
Onward we press, North or South, it does not seem to matter, as we know that we have not yet seen all that Svalbard has to offer, and the more it reveals the more we hunger for more.
