Project: "Digital field guide for Festningen"

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Author: Associate professor Kim Senger

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Funding from iEarth: 35 750 NOK in 2020

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The renowned Festningen section in the outer part of Isfjorden, western Spitsbergen, offers a c. 7 km long nearly continuous stratigraphic section of Lower Carboniferous to Cenozoic strata. Tectonic deformation tilted the strata to near-vertical, allowing easy access to the section along the shoreline. The Festningen section is a regionally important stratigraphic reference profile, and thus a key locality for any geologist visiting Svalbard. The lithology variations, dinosaur footprints, as well as the many fossil groups, record more than 300 million years of continental drift, climate change, and sea level variations. UNIS staff digitized the entire Festningen section in September 2020 using photogrammetry, and the resulting high-resolution digital outcrop model allows free non-discriminatory digital access to this exceptional field site irrespective of season, weather and field budgets. The iEarth-funded DigFest project provides a complementary virtual field trip to Festningen, focussing on the evolution of fauna and flora during 300 million years of geological history.

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Read the iEarth SEED project report here

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Read the peer-reviewed publication in FirstBreak here

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