Dickson Land
Coordinates: 78 ° 50 ' N , 15 ° 55' E
Dickson Land is an area on the Svalbard island of Spitzbergen in the Arctic Ocean.
geography
Dickson Land is located in the northern part of the island of Svalbard, between the Billefjord and Dicksonfjord - branches of the Isfjord . Bünsow-Land and Olav-V-Land join to the east , while James-I-Land is in the northwest . The borders of Dickson Land run from Dicksonfjord via Dicksondalen to Vestfjord (a branch of the Wijdefjord ) and from Austfjord (the longest arm of the Wijdefjord) over the Mittag-Lefflerbreen to Adolfbukta on the Billefjord. The southernmost point of Dickson Land is Cape Thordsen . This is where Svenskhuset stands , a building erected in 1872 that housed the Swedish expedition as part of the First International Polar Year in 1882/83 .
The west of Dickson Land belongs to the Nordre-Isfjorden National Park , the north to the Indre Wijdefjorden National Park .
Present and late ice age glaciation
The current Dickson-Land glaciation consists of plateau glaciers with outlet tongues . The glacier snow line (ELA) ran in 1976 at a height of approx. 500 m . Their orographic variations are dependent on the wind exposure. Dickson Land was on the edge of two local glaciers during the Late Ice Age glacier advance. A superordinate inland freezing of West Spitzbergen can be excluded for this period.
Due to the formation of a kerb valley system through subglacial meltwater erosion, the peak of the late Ice Age glaciation can be dated to about 17,500 (± 2000–1375) years ago. A correlation of post-glacial glacier ends with radiocarbon-dated (C14) sea terraces is possible here. Taking into account the isostatic land elevation, a climatic glacial snow line at a height of approx. 270 m was determined for a post-glacial stage around 10,400 years ago . A glacier stagnation around 9650 years ago coincides with a snow limit of around 320 m . The historical glacier fluctuation around the year 1890 occurred with a glacier snow line at a height of about 420 m , which corresponds to a snow line lowering of about 60 meters compared to 1976. The formation of the strong periglacial surface forms with frost pattern soils can be traced back to the warm period 7000 to 2000 years ago . The reason for this was the great alternation of frost in the soil as a result of the deeply thawed permafrost . Such frost pattern soils become smaller and smaller with increasing sea level because of the decreasing temperature, because the depth of sorting in the frost debris becomes smaller.
tourism
In Dickson Land is the now-abandoned Russian mining settlement Pyramiden , which is a popular destination because it was left behind as if the residents would return anytime. The settlement can be reached by boat in summer and by snowmobile in winter from Longyearbyen . Tourists are not allowed to drive snowmobiles in Dickson Land because it is no longer in the so-called Management Area 10 . However, there are accommodations between the pyramids and the border of the Management Area 10 that can be used by tourists.
etymology
Dickson Land got its name in honor of Oscar Dickson , a Swedish businessman who in particular supported Adolf Erik Nordenskjöld's Arctic expeditions with considerable amounts.
Web links
Dickson Land . In: The Place Names of Svalbard (first edition 1942). Norsk Polarinstitutt , Oslo 2001, ISBN 82-90307-82-9 (English, Norwegian).
Individual evidence
- ↑ RW Feyling-Hanssen, I. Olsson: Five radiocarbon datings of post-glacial shorelines in central Spitsbergen . In: Norsk Geogr. Tidsskr. 17 (1-4), 1960
- ↑ a b R. W. Feyling-Hanssen: Shorline displacement in Central Spitsbergen. In: Results d. Stauferland Expedition (F. Nansen Memorial Symposium) 3, 1965, pp. 24-28.
- ↑ a b M. Kuhle: On the geomorphology of S-Dicksonland (W-Spitzbergen) with an emphasis on the Quaternary glaciation history. In: Polarforschung 53 (1), 1983, pp. 31-57.
- ↑ RW Feyling-Hanssen: Stratigraphy of the marine Late Pleistocene of Billefjorden, Vestspitsbergen. Norsk Polar Inst. Skr. 107, 1955.
- ^ M. Kuhle: Upper limit of frost soil phenomena. In: Journal of Geomorphology NF 22 (3), 1978, pp. 350–356.