New NAPA funding to IKKA project
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New NAPA funding to IKKA project

The Nordic-Arctic Co-operation Programme NAPA has granted a 2nd year of funding to the IKKA project in Greenland. We are most grateful for this funding to our project ‘The Ikaite columns – past and future, and prospects in a changing Arctic’, which is led by myself and two biology colleagues, Susse Wegeberg (Aarhus University) and Lina Rasmusson (University of Gothenburg). During the second year, our focus will be on fieldwork in Ikka Fjord, SW Greenland next summer 2024. With the help of divers, we will establish a monitoring programme for Ikka Fjord at its submarine columns, where the biological life on the columns will be monitored both with respect to coverage and biodiversity. In addition, we will try to establish column stations, where the mineralogy kan be monitored on regular intervals together with columnar fluid extraction. Other parameters such as seawater logging and establishing a weather station are part of our fieldwork plans. The results of the 1st year of this project will be presented by all three of us at the Greenland Science Week in Nuuk in November 2023. There are many interesting results to present. One part is also to advertise that we now have a database allocated to IKKA data up and running at Aarhus University:


https://ecos.au.dk/forskningraadgivning/temasider/ikka-projektdatabase


This is a public accessible database. It will contain photos, videos, and data from the IKKA project 1995 – present day. Furthermore, we are assisting two new museums, one in Copenhagen (DK) and one in Paamiut (GL) in creating exhibitions about Ikka Fjord and the magical underwater world of ikaite columns. The one in Copgenhagen is the Natural History Museum of Denmark to open in 2025, and the one in Paamiut is an updated version of the old Ivittuut mineral museum, which is planned to open 2023 – 2024.

Photo: Paul Seaman. Beautiful Ikka Fjord in early morning with a view towards the part of the fjord, where the columns are standing under water.