Research expedition: a journey to 66°N
In July 2012, a team from the School of Environmental Sciences (SoES) journeyed 5000 km through Sweden and Norway sampling small lake basins from the boreal (coniferous) forests of the Scandes Mountains to lakes north of the Arctic Circle.
The research is part of an ongoing Swedish Foundation for International Cooperation in Research and Higher Education (STINT) project, ‘DYNAMITE’ (DYNAmic Models in Terrestrial Ecosystems and Landscapes), which has supported research and teaching cooperation between the University of Liverpool and Lund University (Sweden) since 2009.
The SoES team, led by Drs John Boyle and Richard Chiverrell, comprised a postdoctoral researcher (Lee Bradley), postgraduates (Dan Schillereff, Fiona Russell, Tim Shaw and Jenny Clear) and undergraduates undertaking their dissertation fieldwork (Rachel Devine and Dan Wilberforce).
From Lund, the team traced the retreat of the last Fenno-Scandinavian Ice Sheet from marginal limits 11,500 years ago in southern Sweden to sites further north that became ice-free 10-9,500 years ago. The aim is to examine the nutrient dynamics of these small lakes and catchments during the early millennia of the current interglacial period, where mineral weathering and depletion appears to govern phosphorus supply to the lakes, regulating water pH and thus ecosystem functioning.
Starting with Holtjarnen (60°39'N, 15°56'E) 620km north of Lund, the team journeyed 320km north to Abborrtjärnen (63° 53 N, 14° 27 E), 420km to Sotaure Javri (66° 43 N, 20° 34 E), slightly south to Nuortsap-javre (66° 24 N, 20° 27 E) and finally west to Rammstein Javri (66° 24 N, 16° 52 E) en route to the Norwegian border and some well-earned ‘R and R’ (Rock ‘n’ Roll) on the very long journey home.