Jökull - 01.01.2009, Page 136

Magnús T. Guðmundsson
THE 2008 SPRING EXPEDITION
The annual spring expedition of the Glaciological So-
ciety in 2008 took place on May 30 – June 7. The
number of participants was 29 whereof five arrived
on June 2. As before the huts at Grímsfjall were the
main base but small groups were also located in the
huts in Kverkfjöll and Goðahnjúkar. Weather con-
ditions were favourable in the first few days but no
fieldwork could be done for two days (June 4–5) due
to high winds and drifting snow. Projects carried
out in the expedition were: Measurement of the level
of Grímsvötn (which remains low with minimal wa-
ter accumulation due to semi-continuous leakage of
the subglacial lake), measurements of winter accu-
mulation in Grímsvötn and several other places, map-
ping of the surface of Grímsvötn to monitor changes
in geothermal activity, study of the 2004 Grímsvötn
tephra layer, ice flow measurements in Grímsvötn and
around Skaftárkatlar, GPS geodetic surveys to deter-
mine magma accumulation beneath Grímsvötn and
isostatic uplift of the land beneath Vatnajökull, mea-
surements of heat flux at the Kverkfjöll geothermal
area, mapping of lateral moraines in SE Vatnajökull
in order to determine glacier size during the little ice
age, and surveys within and around the Skaftárkatlar
ice cauldrons in a follow up of the hot water drilling
that took place in 2006 and 2007. Some tasks could
be finished while less could be done at e. g. Kverk-
fjöll and Goðahnjúkar than planned, due to the dif-
ficult weather conditions. The group included scien-
tists from the Institute of Earth Sciences of the Univer-
sity of Iceland, Icelandic Meteorological Office, Hy-
drological Service of the National Energy Authority,
The National Power Company (Landsvirkjun) and the
University of Edinburgh.
136 JÖKULL No. 59, 2009