150 Frmland Ridge
Varmlandryggen
➡️ Where: Located on the northern shore of the Strait of Iss, it takes 2 hours to get here by boat from Longyearbyen
➡️ Recommended travel time: half a day
➡️ The fjords on the west side of the Fermland ridge were used by early whaling ships, which are now missing except for one or two cruise ships.
After landing in the shoals on the west side of the ridgeline, you will see a gentle slope covered with grass and moss, which spreads all the way to the bottom of the mountain. Standing on the gentle slope, you can see the reindeer herd near and far. They seem indifferent to the arrival of humans and are still grazing.
The Fermland Ridge is made up of sedimentary rocks sunk on the seafloor, and after a crustal extrusion movement, the originally horizontal sedimentary rocks produce a 90-degree displacement and then erect peaks. At the same time, the fossils buried deep in the ground are also brought to the ground, because according to the structure of the rock formation, it should be the older ones below, the younger ones on top, but after turning a right angle, the older ones run to the left, and the younger ones run to the right. So hiking here, every few meters you walk, the stones under your feet may be tens of millions of years apart.
You'll first encounter the Carboniferous period (3.55-295 million years ago), when Svalbard was located around 20 degrees north latitude, and fossilized creatures lived in tropical oceans on the edge of the continent. Continue five or six meters east to the Permian (2.95-250 million years ago), where the variety of organisms in the fossils suddenly flourished, brachiopods and bryozoans of various forms could be found. On the return journey, you will pass through the Triassic period (255-200 million years ago), when Svalbard was already located at 55 degrees north latitude, the marine environment was cooled, and no organic matter could be found in the rock formations.
Connecting several ancient eras together forms a road to find fossils, and even the most inconspicuous small stones can be carefully identified for half a day.
The Fermland Ridge is located at the southern tip of Oskar II Island, and on the west side of the island, you can also see two magical geological landscapes.
One is called a stone ring, which is a stone in a circle, which is not a shape that is put on by people, but a masterpiece of nature. The formation of stone rings requires harsh conditions, first of all, it must be in the permafrost layer with high water content, and the thickness of the surface stone particles is uneven. After freeze-thaw sorting (that is, when the water freezes, the volume expands, so that the stones next to it move slightly, and in the summer, the gaps removed by the stones after the ice melt are filled with sand, and over time, the sand with different thicknesses will automatically separate), the sand grains gather in the middle, and the stones are squeezed to the edge, forming a stone ring.
You will also see some cracks like knife splits in the middle of the stones, originally those gaps are extremely small, but after the water flowing into it continues to expand and contract, the stones become fragmented, and it seems that the softer things are, the more unknown hard they are.
➡️ Travel tip: Fossils found here can be touched, but not taken away, this is a rule that everyone must follow.
➡️ Feel free on the go:
Sometimes, time can represent distance, such as light-years; Sometimes, distance can mean time, such as every step you take on the Fermland ridge spans tens of millions of years.
