Svalbard - Geography

Geography

Svalbard is an archipelago between the Arctic Ocean, Barents Sea, Greenland Sea and Norwegian Sea, constituting the northernmost part of Norway. The treaty defines Svalbard as all islands, islets and skerries from 74° to 81° north latitude, and from 10° to 35° east longitude. The land area is 61,022 km2 (23,561 sq mi), and dominated by the island Spitsbergen, which constitutes more than half the archipelago, followed by Nordaustlandet and Edgeøya. All settlements are located on Spitsbergen, except the meteorological outposts on Bjørnøya and Hopen. The Norwegian state took possession of all unclaimed land, or 95.2% of the archipelago, at the time the Svalbard Treaty entered into force; Store Norske owns 4%, Arktikugol owns 0.4%, while other private owners hold 0.4%.

Svalbard is located in the north-western corner of the Eurasian Plate. To the south and east, the seabed is shallow at 200 to 300 metres (660 to 980 ft), while to the north and west it sinks down to about 4 kilometres (2.5 mi). North of Svalbard there is pack ice and the North Pole, and to the south mainland Norway. The Russian archipelago Franz Josef Land and Novaya Zemlya are located to the east, Greenland is to the west.

Since Svalbard is located north of the Arctic Circle it experiences both midnight sun in summer and polar night in winter. At 74° north, the midnight sun lasts 99 days and polar night 84 days, while the respective figures at 81° are 141 and 128 days. In Longyearbyen, midnight sun lasts from 20 April until 23 August, and polar night lasts from 26 October to 15 February. In winter, the combination of full moon and reflective snow can give additional light.

Glaciation covers 36,502 km2 (14,094 sq mi) or 60% of Svalbard; 30% is barren rock while 10% is vegetated. The largest glacier is Austfonna (8,412 km2/3,248 sq mi) on Nordaustlandet, followed by Olav V Land and Vestfonna. During summer, it is possible to ski from Sørkapp in the south to the north of Spitsbergen, with only a short distance not being covered by snow or glacier. Kvitøya is 99.3% covered by glacier.

The landforms of Svalbard were created through repeated ice ages, where glaciers cut the former plateau into fjords, valleys and mountains. The tallest peak is Newtontoppen (1,713 m/5,620 ft), followed by Perriertoppen (1,712 m/5,617 ft), Ceresfjellet (1,675 m/5,495 ft), Chadwickryggen (1,640 m/5,380 ft) and Galileotoppen (1,637 m/5,371 ft). The longest fjord is Wijdefjorden (108 km/67 mi), followed by Isfjorden (107 km/66 mi), Van Mijenfjorden (83 km/52 mi), Woodfjorden (64 km/40 mi) and Wahlenbergfjorden (46 km/29 mi). Svalbard is part of the High Arctic Large Igneous Province, and experienced Norway's strongest earthquake on 6 March 2009, which hit 6.5 on the Richter scale.