Permafrost is ground that continuously remains below 0 °C (32 °F) for two or more years, located on land or under the ocean. Most common in the Northern Hemisphere, around 15% of the Northern Hemisphere or 11% of the global surface is underlain by permafrost, including substantial areas of Alaska, Greenland, Canada and Siberia. It can also be located on mountaintops in the Southern Hemisphere and beneath ice-free areas in the Antarctic.
RV Polarstern is a German research icebreaker of the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research (AWI) in Bremerhaven, Germany. Polarstern was built by Howaldtswerke-Deutsche Werft in Kiel and Nobiskrug in Rendsburg, was commissioned in 1982, and is mainly used for research in the Arctic and Antarctica. The ship has a length of 118 metres and is a double-hulled icebreaker. She is operational at temperatures as low as −50 °C (−58 °F). Polarstern can break through ice 1.5 m thick at a speed of 5 knots. Thicker ice of up to 3 m (9.8 ft) can be broken by ramming.
The Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres is the largest scientific organisation in Germany. It is a union of 18 scientific-technical and biological-medical research centers. The official mission of the Association is "solving the grand challenges of science, society and industry". Scientists at Helmholtz therefore focus research on complex systems which affect human life and the environment. The namesake of the association is the German physiologist and physicist Hermann von Helmholtz.
The New Siberian Islands are an archipelago in the Extreme North of Russia, to the North of the East Siberian coast between the Laptev Sea and the East Siberian Sea north of the Sakha (Yakutia) Republic.
New Siberia is the easternmost of the Anzhu Islands, the northern subgroup of the New Siberian Islands lying between the Laptev Sea and East Siberian Sea. Its area of approximately 6,200 square kilometres places it the 102nd largest islands in the world. New Siberia Island is low lying, rising to only 76 metres and covered with tundra vegetation. The island is a part of the territory of Yakutia, Russia.
Bolshoy Lyakhovsky Island, or Great Lyakhovsky, is the largest of the Lyakhovsky Islands belonging to the New Siberian Islands archipelago between the Laptev Sea and the East Siberian Sea in northern Russia. It has an area of 5,156.6 km2 (1,991.0 sq mi), and a maximum altitude of 311 m (1,020 ft).
Maly Lyakhovsky Island is the second largest of the Lyakhovsky Islands belonging to the New Siberian Islands archipelago in Laptev Sea in northern Russia. It has an area of 975.5 km2 (376.6 sq mi).
The De Long Islands are an uninhabited archipelago often included as part of the New Siberian Islands, lying north east of Novaya Sibir.
The Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research is located in Bremerhaven, Germany, and a member of the Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres. It conducts research in the Arctic, the Antarctic, and the high and mid latitude oceans. Additional research topics are: North Sea research, marine biological monitoring, and technical marine developments. The institute was founded in 1980 and is named after meteorologist, climatologist, and geologist Alfred Wegener.
Bennett Island is the largest of the De Long Islands in the northern part of the East Siberian Sea. The area of this island is approximately 150 square kilometres and it has a tombolo at its eastern end. The highest point of the island is 426 metres high Mount De Long, the highest point of the archipelago. Bennett Island is part of the Yakutia administrative division of Russia.
Jeannette Island is the easternmost island of the De Long Islands archipelago in the East Siberian Sea. Administratively it belongs to Yakutia of the Russian Federation.
Vilkitsky Island is the southernmost island of the De Long group in the northern part of the East Siberian Sea. The nearest island is Zhokhov Island. Administratively Vilkitsky Island belongs to Yakutia, an administrative division of the Russian Federation.
The Nordenskjöld Coast is located on the Antarctic Peninsula, more specifically Graham Land, which is the top region of the Peninsula. The Peninsula is a thin, long ice sheet with an Alpine-style mountain chain. The coast consists of 15m tall ice cliffs with ice shelves.
The International Permafrost Association (IPA), founded in 1983, has as its objectives to foster the dissemination of knowledge concerning permafrost and to promote cooperation among persons and national or international organisations engaged in scientific investigation and engineering work related to permafrost and seasonally frozen ground. The IPA became an Affiliated Organisation of the International Union of Geological Sciences in July 1989.
Kotelny Island is part of the Anzhu Islands subgroup of the New Siberian Islands located between the Laptev Sea and the East Siberian Sea in the Russian Arctic. It is administratively and municipally part of Bulunsky District.
The Schirmacher Oasis is a 25 km (16 mi) long and up to 3 km (1.9 mi) wide ice-free plateau with more than 100 freshwater lakes. It is situated in the Schirmacher Hills on the Princess Astrid Coast in Queen Maud Land in East Antarctica and is, on average, 100 m (330 ft) above sea level. With an area of 34 km2 (13 sq mi), the Schirmacher Oasis ranks among the smallest Antarctic oases and is a typical polar desert.
Pangaea or Pangea was a supercontinent that existed during the late Paleozoic and early Mesozoic eras. It assembled from the earlier continental units of Gondwana, Euramerica and Siberia during the Carboniferous approximately 335 million years ago, and began to break apart about 200 million years ago, at the end of the Triassic and beginning of the Jurassic. In contrast to the present Earth and its distribution of continental mass, Pangaea was centred on the Equator and surrounded by the superocean Panthalassa and the Paleo-Tethys and subsequent Tethys Oceans. Pangaea is the most recent supercontinent to have existed and the first to be reconstructed by geologists.
PANGAEA - Data Publisher for Earth & Environmental Science is a digital data library and a data publisher for earth system science. Data can be georeferenced in time and space.
The Boreas Plain is an abyssal plain in the South of Fram Strait with water depths of around 3 km at 78°N0°E.
The Institut für Meereskunde in Kiel, Germany, existed from April 1, 1937 to January 1, 2004. It was an essential element of the long history of marine sciences in Kiel. This history started with the work of Samuel Reyher published in 1697 and is today continued within the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel.
Thiede, Jörn & Bauch, Henning (1999) The Late Quaternary history of northern Eurasia and the adjacent Arctic Ocean: an introduction to QUEEN. Boreas, Vol. 28, pp. 3–5. Oslo. ISSN 0300-9483. doi : 10.1111/j.1502-3885.1999.tb00202.x (pdf 132 kB)
Thiede, Jörn (1996) Quaternary Environment of the Eurasian North (QUEEN), European Science Foundation, Strasbourg. (pdf 150 kB)
Grobe, Hannes; Thiede, Jörn (1997) Information System for the ESF/QUEEN Programme (QUEEN/PANGAEA), Initial workshop/proposal, Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research, Bremerhaven. (pdf 100 kB)
Scientific results were published in special QUEEN issues of the following journals:
