Svalbard – the place where scientists can study both climate change and Mars
At 79 degrees north latitude, the landscape in Svalbard changes so rapidly that landforms can look completely different from one year to the next. For some researchers, this Arctic region is also a laboratory for understanding the landscapes of the planet Mars. Here, they can test whether or not the hypotheses about the Red Planet are true.
Field journal from Svalbard
Planetary geologist and researcher Cynthia Sassenroth spent three weeks in Kongsfjorden, Svalbard to study the rapidly changing Arctic and to test new techniques that may some day be used by astronauts on Mars. This is her diary from the field.
The Martian High Arctic: Analogue Studies and Climate Change in Svalbard
From 1 to 22 July, I joined the annual SPLAM expedition to Ny Ålesund, Svalbard, together with colleagues from the German Aerospace Center (DLR), the University of Münster and NASA. For three weeks, Ny Ålesund was our base for fieldwork around Kongsfjorden, where we monitored rapidly changing Arctic landscapes, investigated terrestrial analogues for Mars, collected samples and tested new techniques for 3D mapping.
SPLAM, short for Svalbard Permafrost Landforms as Analogues for Mars, is a long-running project and expedition series initiated by Andreas Johnsson, planetary geomorphologist at the University of Gothenburg. SPLAM has conducted fieldwork in Svalbard since 2008, using cold-climate landforms and processes in the High Arctic to investigate questions relevant both to Mars and to terrestrial periglacial environments.
Why study the planet Mars on Svalbard?
A central reason for working in Svalbard is that it provides direct access to cold, ice-rich landscapes in which water and ice remain geomorphically active. These environments offer useful analogues for parts of Mars where landforms indicate interactions between ground ice, liquid water and sediment. In this respect, Svalbard is particularly relevant to a cold and ice-rich Mars, rather than to either the warmer and wetter environments of early Mars or the hyperarid surface conditions that dominate the planet today.
On Mars, we primarily investigate these landscapes using orbital remote sensing. Although this allows landforms and their spatial relationships to be mapped in considerable detail, the processes responsible for producing them cannot usually be observed directly. In Svalbard, we can examine comparable landforms at the surface and in the subsurface, observe active processes, measure the environmental conditions under which they operate, and determine the sediments and morphologies they produce.
Equally importantly, they allow proposed Martian formation mechanisms to be tested critically: if a process operating in Svalbard produces geometries, sedimentary relationships or surface expressions inconsistent with those observed on Mars, that process can be constrained or excluded as an explanation. The analogue therefore provides a means of discriminating between competing process hypotheses rather than simply identifying morphological similarities between Earth and Mars.
A long-term record of change in High Arctic landscapes
SPLAM has returned to many of the same sites since 2008 provides a valuable long-term record of change in High Arctic permafrost landscapes. Repeated observations allow us to document how ice-rich terrain responds to changing climatic and environmental conditions and, importantly, to relate observed geomorphic changes to the processes driving them.
These two perspectives, using Svalbard to understand and test processes relevant to Mars, and monitoring the evolution of rapidly changing High Arctic landscapes, forms the scientific basis for our three weeks of fieldwork.
Getting to work menas putting on thick survival suits, loading a lot of bulky, yet delicate equipment into small boats and heading out into the fjord.
From our base in Ny Ålesund at 79° N, most field days began by boat. Our main study sites are scattered around the Brøgger peninsula, so getting to work usually meant putting on thick survival suits, loading a lot of bulky, yet delicate equipment into small boats and heading out into the fjord. At the sites, we stayed in small field huts and brought everything we needed for several days with us.
Thaw slumps in Kongsfjorden
One of these sites lies deeper inside Kongsfjorden on a lateral ice-cored moraine associated with the Kongsvegen-Kronebreen glacier system. From a distance, the moraine looks like solid ground: a large ridge of sediment and rocky debris left behind by the retreating glaciers. But much of the lateral moraine is actually ice-cored, with large volumes of remnant glacier ice buried underneath a relatively thin debris cover.
And that ice is disappearing. Fast.
As long as the debris cover is thick enough, it can insulate the underlying ice and reduce degradation. But once that cover becomes too thin or is disturbed, the ice becomes much more vulnerable to melt. Higher temperatures and, importantly, rainfall events can accelerate this process. As the ice degrades, the overlying sediment loses support and fails, exposing more ice and producing large retrogressive thaw slumps that progressively retreat upslope into the moraine.
What surprised us most is just how fast this can happen.
What surprised us most is just how fast this can happen. At our site, individual thaw-slump scarps can retreat by several meters within only two weeks. Features we monitor during one field season can look completely different, or even have disappeared entirely, when we return the following year.
This is exactly why coming back and repeating the same measurements is so important.
During the campaign, we documented the thaw slumps with time-lapse cameras and acquired stereo imagery that is being later processed into digital terrain models at approximately 1–3 cm/pixel resolution. We also had data loggers recording air and ground temperatures, precipitation and incoming solar radiation. Putting these datasets together allows us to see not only where and how much the landscape changed, but also which environmental conditions accompanied periods of increased activity.
We also used thermal imaging across the slump scarps and interiors. Exposed or shallow subsurface ice produces a different thermal signature from the surrounding debris, giving us another way of identifying ice exposures and looking at temperature variations across the actively degrading terrain.
Interpreting potentially comparable landforms on Mars
The site is valuable both for understanding the evolution of ice-rich Arctic landscapes and for interpreting potentially analogous landforms on Mars. We can directly observe how an ice-cored Arctic landform responds to changing environmental conditions and watch how ice degradation, sediment failure and scarp retreat interact. At the same time, it gives us something tangible to work with when looking at ice-related landforms on Mars, where we can map the morphology but cannot stand next to the processes that created or modified it.
Kvadehuksletta: Sorted Patterend Ground and Planetary Exploartion
Our second main study area took us farther north to Kvadehuksletta, near the outer part of the Brøgger Peninsula. At first glance, it is probably not the most dramatic landscape in Svalbard: broad, relatively flat and rather barren. A closer look, however, reveals a surprisingly complex landscape. Kvadehuksletta is an extensive emerged strandflat, where raised coastal sediments overlie a heavily fractured carbonate bedrock platform. Small creeks and glacier-fed rivers dissect the landscape, forming canyons, alluvial fans and small deltas along the modern shoreline. Across this terrain, periglacial processes continuously reshape the surface.
Among the most striking features are the sorted circles, and Kvadehuksletta contains some of the best-developed examples of patterned ground on Earth. Their formation is associated with repeated freeze–thaw, differential frost heave and the resulting movement and sorting of sediment.
Why are we interested in them? Because we see very similar-looking patterns on Mars.
The problem is that similar morphology does not necessarily mean that the features formed through the same processes. On Mars, we mostly have orbital images showing us the final morphology. Here in Svalbard, we can identify and monitor the processes and see how these features change over time.
Our task was therefore to repeat measurements along an established traverse across selected clusters of sorted circles. At each cluster, we collected high-resolution stereo imagery for processing into DTMs with a pixel resolution of approximately 1–3 cm. Comparing these models with data from previous field campaigns allows us to detect even very small changes in the patterned ground.
This year, we also brought additional mapping equipment. Our NASA colleague Mike Zanetti tested a backpack-mounted LiDAR system for rapid terrain mapping, a device that could potentially support astronaut geological fieldwork on the Moon. We also tested a commercial handheld LiDAR scanner for the first time, which generated a 3D model of the surrounding terrain almost instantly.
Standing in the middle of Kvadehuksletta and looking at a 3D model of the terrain we had just walked across blew my mind a little.
Normally, getting to the same point involves a long processing pipeline; here, the result appeared almost instantly on our tablet. Apart from being very cool to see a DTM getting generated in real time, it gave us a chance to test how these systems actually perform under Arctic conditions. And who knows, similar equipment might eventually end up in the hands of astronauts doing geological fieldwork on the Moon or Mars.
Beyond the Science
Spending three weeks doing fieldwork in the High Arctic is an experience in its own right. Ny Ålesund is unlike almost anywhere else I have worked. Scientific stations and research equipment sit in the middle of barren mountains, glaciers and fjords, and wildlife is never particularly far away.
Fieldwork also involves a lot of logistics: moving bulky equipment around, packing boats, and planning ahead for everything from scientific instruments and sampling gear to food, clothing, and whatever else we might need for several days in the field. And all of this takes place in an environment where circumstances can change very quickly. The weather shifts. Icebergs get stuck in the harbour. A polar bear sighting can suddenly determine where, or whether, we are able to work that day. Plans have to stay flexible, and sometimes things simply do not go according to plan because sensor A has decided it no longer wants to communicate with sensor B. Dealing with all of this together was a big part of the experience. Long days in the field, unexpected problems, plenty of improvisation, and those small victories when things finally worked made us a great team. So, a huge shout-out to my teammates for the solving problems together, good-humour and for making these three weeks such a good time.
And the support went well beyond our own research group. The AWIPEV station team in Ny Ålesund was fantastic and repeatedly went above and beyond to help us make the best possible use of our time in the field. In a place where weather, logistics and safety can completely change the plan for the day, having that support makes a huge difference.
Another special aspect of Ny Ålesund is the research community itself. I even met colleagues there whom I had collaborated with before but had only ever known through online meetings. Somehow, it took travelling to one of the northernmost settlements in the world for us to finally meet in person.
Great science, an amazing team and new collaborations
There is also something quite humbling about working in Svalbard. The landscape is spectacular, but at the same time it is changing incredibly quickly. My first visit to Ny-Ålesund was only in 2023, and even within those three years some of the changes are painfully obvious. Some of the smaller cirque and tributary glaciers have already been reduced to debris-covered remnants, and some will probably disappear altogether within the next few years. Even on the larger valley glaciers, extensive areas of exposed blue ice make it difficult to ignore what is happening.
At the same time, I left Svalbard with an overwhelmingly positive feeling. Three weeks in the field meant long days and nights, moving and organizing heavy equipment, changing plans and the occasional setbacks, but also great science, an amazing team, new collaborations and a lot of moments that reminded me why I like doing fieldwork in the first place.
I am already looking forward to seeing what Svalbard will have in store for us next time.
