18 May 2006

Actually, one interesting thing...

I guess there was one very exciting thing that has happened in the past week. I received a young researcher travel award that will cover travel and accomodations for a one month stay in Wellington, New Zealand, this coming winter. I've been in contact with a researcher down there and we're working on ideas for possible collaborations. Not sure what will happen yet, but I'm sure it'll involve some field work and interesting discussions. Maybe (and hopefully) it'll lead to something bigger.

I'm off!

A hectic few weeks will come come to a close when I step on the plane for Greenland tonight (via New York). Again, sorry about the lack of updates lately, but there hasn't been time or anything interesting to write about. But I promise there will be plenty of pictures and stories of icebergs, isbræ, and slots when I return in July. Until then... Have a great summer!

05 May 2006

Greenland drama

As I mentioned previously, it's been a lot of work getting ready for field work in Greenland. Almost everything's been taken care of. Most of our gear is already on its way, we've got airline tickets, hotel reservations, maps, and a big grocery list. Except for two small details, we're set! Right... Yeah, except those two small details are actually pretty big deals. Last week we found out that we couldn't get a permit to operate our radio antennas, which we need in order to download GPS data remotely. The radios would help us to locate our GPS receivers after they've travelled for a year (they probably won't be that easy to find amongst all that ice!). And this week we received a permit to work near the glacier - its a World Heritage Site. But the problem is that we aren't allowed to go where we want to go for camping, optical surveying, and photography purposes. The strange thing is that people camped there last year without any troubles. And what makes this ironic is that a glaciologist was instrumental in turning the fjord into a World Heritage Site (because the glacier/fjord system is very unique), and now glaciologists aren't allowed to go there to study it. Well, anyway, the permit was a little vague so there's still hope, though we are leaving in two weeks....

One thing is for certain though - we'll be going to Greenland, just not sure what we'll be doing!

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