Jökull - 01.01.2021, Page 170

Andri Gunnarsson og Magnús T. Guðmundsson
Hluti seinni hópsins í Grímsvötnum þann 11. júní. – Part of the group in Grímsvötn on June 11. Ljósm./Photo.
MTG.
Sigurður Vignisson, Salka Kolbeinsdóttir, Sjöfn Sig-
steinsdóttir, Stefán Freyr Benonýsson, Sveinbjörn
Steinþórsson, Tom Winder, Þóra Karlsdóttir, Þórdís
Högnadóttir.
The 2021 Spring Expedition
The annual spring expedition of the society to Vat-
najökull took place from May 30th to June 13th in
two separate groups. The two groups were smaller
than unusual (15–17 people per group) to ensure pre-
cautions and safety measures due to the Covid-19
pandemic. Both groups travelled to Grímsfjall from
Skálafellsjökull, á SE-outlet glacier of Vatnajökull.
For both groups the weather was quite cold with fre-
quent snow fall and clouds for most of the time. Such
persistently poor weather is quite unusual for this time
of the year. Although the weather conditions were
mostly unfavorable almost all planned tasked were
finished in both groups. They included annual tasks
such as mass balance surveys at several sites, setup
and maintenance of automatic weather and GPS sta-
tions, GPS surveys at several nunataks, maintenance
of permanent GPS and seismic stations, including the
permanent station on Öræfajökull. Radio-echo sound-
ing measurements were conducted along with gravity
surveying to update the bedrock map at Gjálp north of
Grímsvötn which erupted 25 years ago (1996). Gas
samples were collected both in Grímsvötn and the
cauldrons in Bárðarbunga among many other tasks.
Various maintenance work was done at the Grímsvötn
huts as well.
168 JÖKULL No. 71, 2021