The 3D lab

The attraction of mountains

Posted on October 23, 2013 by lembrechtsjonas

There is something wonderfully attractive about mountains. They whisper this one message in your head: ‘Go just a little bit further, only up that rock! Think about the view!’ Of course, you listen, no doubt about it! Mountains are not to be ignored.

And then you see your unequalled viewpoint. You admire the eagle who floats on his large wings under your feet. You follow the silver line of the river all the way up to its source. You look around and think: ‘This is it, now I’ve seen it all. Just look at that rock over there, just imagine the view from there! I’ll go just a little bit further.’

This is a post with some nice pictures, from going just that little bit further. Check ‘Pictures from a PhD’ on the right of the home-page for another bunch of them, it is worth watching!

I will need to go back for more. Mountains are not to be ignored.

Posted in Sweden | Tagged Abroad, Adventure, Mountains, Subarctic | 1 Comment

Mini-majestic

Posted on October 18, 2013 by lembrechtsjonas

Majestic. Impressive. Breath-taking!

We know the mountains for their wonderful views. Remember the goosebumps and indescribable feelings of ‘aww’ and ‘wow’ that you get when you stand on a mountain top and overlook valleys filled with pure and wild nature. Remember these once-in-a-life-time-moments when the sun rises above the mountains or the clouds are mirrored in a motionless lake.

All of them views of incomparable beauty, that’s for sure, but I lost my heart to the small scale. Nothing tops the power of the mini-majestic alpine vegetation. Mini-trees, mini-mushrooms, mini-flowers, but all of them beautifully carved as by some tiny elfish artists, with even more eye for detail than their normal-sized counterparts.

Go to the mountains, find yourself a bright summer day and a south-facing slope and flatter down on a soft cushion of heath and moss. Let yourself impress by the alpine world, because it’s too wonderful to be overlooked. And then you’ll feel what I mean with the hidden beauty of the mountains:

It’s majestic. But mini.

Posted in Sweden | Tagged Abroad, Adventure, Mountains, Subarctic | 3 Comments

Winter is coming

Posted on October 15, 2013 by lembrechtsjonas

Seedling

Tiny little plants, that’s everything. Two centimeters tall, three at most. The invaders in full glory. More is not necessary, at least not for now. Germination is the most difficult part, they say. It can only get better in the future! And germinating they do, our little aliens, no mountain high enough to stop them. Yet.

Look at them, so small and ill prepared for the cold. Maybe the subarctic summer tricked them in a germination they don’t want at all. Maybe they are not strong enough for what will happen next.

Winter is coming. Winter will be the next hurdle to take. We still need to see how many of these tiny seedlings emerge from under the thick blanket of snow that’s falling now. And only then we’ll know the real strength of the aliens.

Posted in Sweden | Tagged Abroad, Experiment, Science, Subarctic | 2 Comments

Punta Arenas

Posted on October 15, 2013 by lembrechtsjonas

Punta Arenas, city of whirling winds and icy winters. Gateway to Antarctica, master of the street of Magellan and host town of the penguins. That’s my next destination, a short visit down to the southernmost part of South America, the exact opposite of the situation in northern Scandinavia. Short summers, harsh climate and steep climatic gradients in the mountains result in a slow-growing vegetation, prepared for the worst. Low to the ground, sheltered against the wind, with leaves adapted to hold as much water as possible in the freezing cold.

That climate should be a strong enough defense against invasion by plants from our mild, Western-European climate. Plants with big, unprotected leaves, plants used to plenty of water and nutrients, plants from heaven visiting hell! But the situation in northern Scandinavia shows the problem: the invaders are too flexible, they don’t seem to mind the cold of hell, they don’t seem to die from lack of nutrients.

We need to fly all the way south to check if this holds true everywhere, or only in the special case of the northern Scandes. That’s why we’ll prepare exactly the same experiment to check the behavior of the invaders in the mountains. If they act in a similar way in the north ànd south of this planet, we’ll have strong evidence about what will happen in those vulnerable cold areas in the future.

I’ll keep you updated!

One of our plots in the mountains close to Abisko. We follow up the little seedlings in their struggle against the harsh climatic circumstances.

Posted in Chile | Tagged Abroad, Adventure, Science, Subantarctic | 1 Comment

The dragon of the subarctic

Posted on October 11, 2013 by lembrechtsjonas

There is a special world up there, high in the north. It’s a world of snow and ice, of rocks and wind. A world where trees stay low to the ground, where falling rocks and whirling rivers determine the slow pace of change. A different world, where survival is the result of a tremendous and ongoing struggle. Most importantly: it’s a world that is not used to the speed of the human way of living.

We are intruders of the north, knights in the cave of a sleeping dragon. We build mines and dams, railways and roads, all on top of the dragon’s back. Unaware of the changes in his troubled breathing while he slowly wakes up. The effects of our increased presence in the subarctic are largely unknown. We don’t know what will happen if we keep on crawling and working on the back of the dragon. But we see that he is slowly awakening and that thousands of years of undisturbed subarctic nature are now increasingly changing.

It is my job to warn the world for this sleeping dragon.
It is my job to find a way to preserve his night’s rest.
It is my job to predict his next move, so we are not unexpectedly catched by his swirling tail.

Majestic view over the mountains in northern Norway, the land of the sleeping dragon. Fairly undisturbed, as long as it lasts.

Posted in Sweden | Tagged Abroad, Human impact, Subarctic | Leave a comment

The big question

Posted on October 10, 2013 by lembrechtsjonas

How a natural and undisturbed system reacts on human intruders, that’s basically the question that will bring me to all ends of the world.

I found some huge and impressive relatively people-free natural systems in mountains above the polar circle. Harsh climate and wild nature provide a fairly effective barrier against humans. But nothing is a hundred percent human-proof. Cause we are simply everywhere.

Wherever we go on this planet, we leave roads, paths and tracks that facilitate our transport. But this immense network of transportation has a large impact on nature. What I want to know, is what happens in mountains when we build our roads. We know a lot about roads in lowlands, but the nature on top of the world is special and reacts in a completely different way to disturbance. That can be good, or bad. If it’s bad, we better start rethinking our future use of mountains, or their impressive nature will soon be gone.

Even tracks (here the start of Kungsleden, Laplands most famous walking tour)
can have a strong influence on a natural system, but their effect on mountains is largely unknown.