Tag archives for Norway
Posted by An amazing astronomy video is making the rounds on the web this week showing comet PanSTARRS joined by a magnificent display of northern lights. Veteran astrophotographer Babak Tafreshi has trained his camera lens on a unique convergence of two cosmic events: the display of the icy visitor nearly 200 million of kilometers distant and the…
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An strange and anonymous donation to the University of Oslo reveals the original inspiration for one of the world’ most iconic images.
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At a first-of-a-kind international symposium in Charleston, SC, heritage experts look at how cruise ships can transform historic port cities. They find that big is not better. Not at all.
LEONARDO’S BRIDGE: Part 3. “Vebjørn Sand and Variations on a Theme by Leonardo”
Posted by Bulent Atalay of Author, National Geographic Books; author, Smithsonian Books; Prof. UMW, Adj Prof UVA. on February 3, 2013 
Vebjørn Sand is a contemporary Norwegian artist, who divides his time between the United States and Norway. In 1996, in viewing a special exhibition of drawings and replicas of Leonardo’s inventions, Mr. Sand became transfixed by the shear beauty and modernity of a bridge the Renaissance master had sketched in a notebook — a bridge…
Posted by Above video from Barcroft TV. Like a scene from Moby Dick, a rare white whale was spotted off the coast of Spitsbergen in Norway by maritime engineer Dan Fisher of the UK. Swimming alongside a pod of other, regular grey humpback whales, this whale likely has a condition called leucism, which causes a reduction in…
Sea Monsters of the North: Day 11-Skull Discovered at Last!
Posted by Jørn Hurum of National Geographic Emerging Explorers in Explorers Journal on August 17, 2012 
After a week of digging through frozen mud and rock at the top of the world, the team comes through with their biggest find yet: their first ever skull of a Loch Ness Monster-type plesiosaur.
Sea Monsters of the North: Day 10-Welcoming Tourists to the Site
Posted by Jørn Hurum of National Geographic Emerging Explorers in Explorers Journal on August 16, 2012 
After all of yesterday’s miserable weather and hard work, no one was rushing out of bed today. The clouds parted however, and an enthusiastic group of tourists came by to see the site.
Sea Monsters of the North: Day 9
Posted by Jørn Hurum of National Geographic Emerging Explorers in Explorers Journal on August 16, 2012 
Terrible weather moves in on the excavation team, obscuring the mountainside in fog, and drenching everyone to the bone. And speaking of bones, the search for the animal’s skull continues.
Sea Monsters of the North: Day 8
Posted by Jørn Hurum of National Geographic Emerging Explorers in Explorers Journal on August 15, 2012 You would have thought the prospect of moving tons of waterlogged permafrost, hour after hour after hour, would make people sneak out the back door. But with the chance of the team finding our first ever plesiosaur skull, people are jumping at the chance to dig.
Sea Monsters of the North: Day 7
Posted by Jørn Hurum of National Geographic Emerging Explorers in Explorers Journal on August 14, 2012 
The head of the plesiosaur remains hidden, but progress is made in the final days of the Spitsbergen expedition.
Sea Monsters of the North: Day 6–Mountain vs. Chainsaw
Posted by Jørn Hurum of National Geographic Emerging Explorers in Explorers Journal on August 13, 2012 
With the prospect of finding their first ever plesiosaur skull, the team brings out chainsaws and pickaxes to carve away the rock and dirt above the spot where the animal’s neck disappears into the mountainside.
Sea Monsters of the North: Day 5
Posted by Jørn Hurum of National Geographic Emerging Explorers in Explorers Journal on August 12, 2012 
Moving to a new vantage point, Jørn and the team set their sights to find more ancient remains and come up with two almost instantly.
Sea Monsters of the North: Day 2
Posted by Jørn Hurum of National Geographic Emerging Explorers in Explorers Journal on August 7, 2012 
The search for sea monster fossils in the frozen north continues, and in a matter of hours the team has found more specimens than the rest of the world will find in the next couple of years.
Sea Monsters of the North: Day 1
Posted by Jørn Hurum of National Geographic Emerging Explorers in Explorers Journal on August 6, 2012 
2011 Emerging Explorer Jørn Hurum is currently on Spitsbergen Island in the Arctic Circle excavating the remains of ancient marine reptiles worthy of the most fantastic Norse legends.
Posted by In these times of tumultuous weather patterns and no certainty about the future stability of Earth’s climate as civilization has known it, it’s reassuring that a significant portion of the planet’s legacy of plant diversity has been stashed for safekeeping deep inside an Arctic mountain.
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In August 2008, I was fortunate enough to join an expedition ship on a circumnavigation of the Svalbard Archipelago in the Arctic Circle, going as far north as 81⁰N. I was on a personal mission to experience and celebrate this Arctic wilderness. Life on a grand scale in this far away place of rock and ice.…
“There is still so much to explore and discover about our planet,” National Geographic Executive Vice President for Mission Programs, Terry Garcia, said today at the launch of National Geographic’s new Global Exploration Fund. “We are at the beginning of our greatest age of exploration.”
Spitsbergen Expedition: Grand Finale
Posted by Jørn Hurum of National Geographic Emerging Explorers in Explorers Journal on August 16, 2011 
After two weeks excavating ancient “sea monster” fossils above the Arctic Circle, NG Emerging Explorer Jørn Hurum and his team pull one last set of bones from the Earth and bid farewell to a site like none other.
Spitsbergen Expedition: Final Excavation
Posted by Jørn Hurum of National Geographic Emerging Explorers in Explorers Journal on August 15, 2011 
As the annual field expedition searching for Arctic sea monster fossils draws to a close, the team must decide which sites to excavate, and which to leave for future expeditions. And of course, there’s another snow storm to deal with.
Spitsbergen Expedition: Fossil Hunting in a Snow Storm
Posted by Jørn Hurum of National Geographic Emerging Explorers in Explorers Journal on August 13, 2011 
With limited time for the expedition, the team must continue the work searching for and excavating fossils despite the sudden arrival of a bitterly cold and wet Arctic snow storm.
Spitsbergen Expedition: Ancient “Flipper’s” Flipper
Posted by Jørn Hurum of National Geographic Emerging Explorers in Explorers Journal on August 10, 2011 
Excavations continue at Emerging Explorer Jørn Hurum’s fossil finding expedition, as the weather turns surprisingly warm, and the flipper of a dolphin-like ichthyosaur is revealed by a team member on video.
Spitsbergen Expedition: More Fossil Finds and a “How-To” Lesson
Posted by Jørn Hurum of National Geographic Emerging Explorers in Explorers Journal on August 9, 2011 
As the team hits the one-week mark, new discoveries continue to be made, and the team reveals how to plaster a fossil find. (Useful information to have, next time you’re digging through shale in the arctic.)
Spitsbergen Expedition: Animals Big and Small
Posted by Jørn Hurum of National Geographic Emerging Explorers in Explorers Journal on August 8, 2011 
A nearby polar bear puts the team on high-alert, as plesiosaur excavations continue, and sea urchin fossils are discovered just outside camp.
Spitsbergen Expedition: Plastering Fossil “Sea Monsters”
Posted by Jørn Hurum of National Geographic Emerging Explorers in Explorers Journal on August 7, 2011 
Jørn Hurum’s team revels in the chance to play with plaster, as the fossils of ancient “sea monsters” are preserved after the first few days of excavations in Svalbard.
Spitsbergen Expedition: This Is Where the Fun Starts!
Posted by Jørn Hurum of National Geographic Emerging Explorers in Explorers Journal on August 5, 2011 
In the third update from 2011 Emerging Explorer Jørn Hurum’s fossil-finding expedition in Norway’s Svalbard archipelago, the team identifies several 150-million-year-old “sea monsters”.
