Scientific expedition "Life in ice" : August 2002 - August 2003, observations at Kinnvika ( 80° 3’N, 18° 12’E ) Svalbard, Nordaustlandet

• Main Author: Trinks, Hauke
• Format: Report
• Language: English
• Published: TUHH Universitätsbibliothek 2003
• Subjects: Biowissenschaften, Biologie; Life sciences; Polargebiete; Evolution; Meereis; Mikroorganismus; Leben / Entstehung; Biogenese; Expedition; Nordostland; Kinnvika; Nordaustlandet; Svalbard; Sea ice
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.15480/882.199; https://tore.tuhh.de/handle/11420/201

A scientific expedition of the Technical University of Hamburg-Harburg (TUHH) was performed in 2002/03 on Nordaustland, Svalbard. Two humans with two sledge dogs stayed continuously for thirteen months in a little hut at a latitude of 80°N. Using a small, well equipped laboratory, many observations and measurements were performed and documented. The main purpose of the expedition was the systematical experimental investigation of the growth and melting of sea ice and it’s microstructure during the course of a whole year. Outgoing from the observations the hypothesis was confirmed about the function of sea ice at the very beginning of Life as a possible matrix to push prebiotic chemistry towards first biological processes. The gained results indeed deliver many arguments that Life may have started in the sea ice of the early Earth, four billion years ago. Sea ice shows a complicated microstructure containing about 10 14 tiny compartments per cubic metre between which liquid brine drips and mineralic ...