The Russian company Trust Arktikugol has restarted coal mining at the archipelago of Svalbard after a two and a half year break. The production halt came after a fire in the local mine in 2008. Read the full article in Russians restarted coal mining at Svalbard.

This video, from National Geographic, shows the interior of the big global seed vault built in the Svalbard islands, near Longyearbyen.

The Svalbard archipelago does not include Spitsbergen only, the biggest and inhabitated one, but also several other islands. In the web site you can find a list of the principal islands of Svalbard.

More than 30 scientists from various European countries are currently travelling to Ny-Ålesund. During the next six weeks, they will participate in a large-scale study about the effect of increased CO2-concentrations on the pelagic marine ecosystem. The experiment is part of the EU-project EPOCA about Ocean Acidification, addressing one of the most critical topics in […]

About 60 million years ago a pantodont was walking along a Svalbard sea shore. The fossil footprints of this mammal were discovered in 2006, the first discovery of fossil mammal tracks on Spitsbergen. Now these tracks have gotten a formal name: Thulitheripus svalbardii. It is in a recently published article in Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, […]

A polar bear has been seen yesterday morning, 7.30 am, near Longyearbyen. Polar bear in Longyearbyen – Photo: Sysselmann The complete article, in norwegian, on Nordlys.

BARENTSBURG film trailer directed by Adrian Briscoe from Adrian Briscoe on Vimeo. Read the information about the movie in the Barentsburg film web site.

The Svalbard Global Seed Vault, or the Doomsday Vault as the media have nicknamed it, was officially opened on February 26, 2008, to serve as the ultimate safety net for one of the world’s most important natural resources. The world’s seed collections are vulnerable to a wide range of threats – civil strife, war, natural […]

Now, you can follow the updates of the website Svalbard 2009 on Facebook.

The long term survival of polar bears is being threatened by man-made pollution that is reaching the Arctic. This conclusion comes from a major review of research into how industrial chemicals such as mercury and organochlorines affect the bears. The review suggests that such chemicals have a range of subclinical effects. When added together, these […]