This semester has been busy with developing more virtual field guides for new locations at Svalbard and adding on information and upgrading old locations. Four new field guide locations are under construction and will hopefully be ready to use by the end of the year including one marine site in Billefjorden!
During the terrestrial Arctic biology course (AB-201) in Ny-Ålesund this August, we gathered pictures and data from the field work. This have been used to create a set of virtual field guides for Stuphallet, Knutsenhøgda and Midtre Loveen glacier, all sites which will be used in future course field work.
In addition, we have started to explore and build up a marine field guide which marks an exciting new addition to our platform. Hopefully this will be the start for more marine field guides in the future.
The team working closely on this has been Tina Dahl, Sine Sara Astad, Jonathan Soule and Simen Hjelle in collaboration with professors and course leaders Larissa Beumer, Phil Semenchuk and Arunima Sen.
The virtual field guides have also been showcased several times in various forums, such as during the Svalbox data days at UNIS and at the Svalbard Science Conference in October. Given that both the biology and the geology department have independently been working on developing virtual field guides, a new initiative has been launched to explore the possibility of creating a common platform. This platform aims to visualize all tools and serve as a as a hub for students and researchers to access and download data.