Data Acquisition in the Arctic – A Challenge Throughout Time
by Björn Heyn (CEED, UiO), Jeremy Gosselin (U.Ottawa), Sruthi Uppalapati (CEED, UiO).
The Arctic is one of the least explored regions of our planet [1] . Most of the Arctic is nowadays covered by water or pack ice, while the outer areas include islands such as Ellesmere Island, Svalbard or Greenland, and the continental shelves of Russia and North America (i.e., Alaska and Canada). A fair amount of data has been collected on these continental parts and the surrounding sea up to about 80°N [2,3] . Yet, access to areas further north is rendered difficult by its remoteness and the cold and rough climate, which causes such things as sea ice and snowstorms. Hence, our knowledge about the geology and tectonics of the High Arctic is very limited. Even the surface topography of Mars or the Moon are better known than the bathymetry of the Arctic ocean [1] .