Victoria Fjord, 82.5 degrees North, August 20, 2024

It has been a long journey up to Victoria Fjord with icebreaker Oden, at times through several meters of thick ice. But now we are finally here! On the peninsulas around Victoria Fjord, there are several lakes that are an important component of our research project. We will use a floating platform to take sediment cores from the bottoms of the lakes, and then analyze prehistoric DNA from these cores. The aim is to investigate the history of the Greenland muskox, including how they were affected when the first humans arrived in Greenland.

So far, we have visited several lakes to examine their depth and determine their suitability for sediment sampling. We have found a lake that is perfectly suited for this, and we have flown out and assembled our sampling platform. Unfortunately, it was too windy to take a sediment sample. But we have left the equipment on the lake shore, and as soon as the weather is more favorable, we will fly out to the lake by helicopter and continue the work.

Alongside the sediment sampling, we are also collecting prehistoric bones and teeth from muskox, which we will use to study their genomes at different points in time during the past 10,000 years. This collection has gone very well, and so far we have found about thirty bones and teeth. We will begin the DNA analyses on board the Oden in a special laboratory container that is adapted for ancient DNA analyses. However, we will not know the age of the remains until we return to Sweden and can perform radiocarbon dating.