Flora and Terra
During the brief summer in the arctic, the flora and flowers use the short season to burst forth across the tundra. Too far north for any trees, the winter’s bitter cold that can crack rocks, somehow misses the reindeer lichen as well as the daisy, Svalbard Poppy and the arctic cottongrass that clamor for attention from the bees. Brilliant days of summer sunshine tickle the sea fog and draw a white “fogbow” along the shores. Despite the temporary warmth that comes with the perpetual sun, it belies the brutal cold winters and ancient ice which have shaped the geomorphology of the land. Frozen tundra, alluvial fans, hoodoo formations, the polished Roche Mountainnee, the debris flows (which seem to spontaneously appear), flowing soils (Solifluction) are all evidence of the subzero temperatures. An even older history of the time appears written in the rocks with Chevron Folds, Boudins, Dikes and gneiss telling a story of a tortured geological past.
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