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Posts Tagged ‘Jökulsárlón’

Sound in Jökulsárlón. Part 2

Posted in Náttúra, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on 18.1.2022| 2 Comments »

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Jökulsárlón is a fascinating glacial lagoon. It is about 300m deep below the glacier tongue and from Kayak I have measured with sonar a spot which was more than 280m deep. It is deeper than many places far away in the Atlantic ocean. So if something happens in this lagoon, like Iceberg calving, the sound will echo in this huge space down there as in a large dome.
It has been almost eight years since I recorded the sound in Jökulsárlón for the first time. I was both surprised and disappointed. The sound was much richer than I thought and because of this loud and rich sound down there it was clear I could not get a detailed sound of it when an Iceberg was scratching the bottom of the lake, or calving glacier.
The most common sound there is a loud „spark sound“ when highly pressed air bubbles break out of the ice, but also when dripping water falls on the surface from the melting ice above. Sometimes the iceberg moves and scratches the gravel in the bottom of the lagoon.
The following recording is made from a Kayak, where the lagoon is 40-80 meters deep and not far away, about 200-400m, from the place I did the recording 8 years ago.
You will hear a buzzing engine noise from sightseeing boats in this recording which has sadly increased in the past decade on the lagoon. Because of increasing tourist traffic this lagoon has almost constant engine noise pollution, both above and under the surface between 9-19 o´clock every day mainly during the summer time.
It is anyway interesting to use the engine noise to get insight into how loud the natural soundscape is in this lagoon. If there were NO ice surrounded by salty seawater, then engine noise would have been echoing loudly in the space below the surface, just as an noisy moped gang was driving inside Pantheon in Rome.

(mp3 256kbps / 63Mb)

Recorder: Sound devices MixPre6
Mics: Benthowave Bll-7121 hydrophones  1,8meters apart.
Pix: Canon EOS R

Location: 64.048029, -16.192690
Weather: Calm to breeze. cloudy around 13 °C
Recording date: 25th of June 2021

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Jökulsárlón in June 2020

Posted in Náttúra, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on 19.5.2021| Leave a Comment »

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Here is one of my „COVID recordings“ that I managed to record by Glacier lagoon, Jökulsárlón near the lagoon outfall.
This place is close to the ring road around Iceland so it is usually overcrowded by tourists and other traffic all year round, almost 24/7. I have only been able to dream of recording this place without traffic and human interruption.
But thanks to COVID, on the 10th of June 2020 I managed to record there without too much interruption.
The soundscape is different in this place, but the recording here below is typical for summer soundscape. When I first went to this place some decades ago the glacier was much closer, I guess about 2km away, but today it is about 8km away and much thinner. The sounds from the glacier have almost disappeared. But on the lagoon are large icebergs that melt down rapidly near the lagoon’s outfall. They can emit interesting sounds when they break in pieces.
Arctic terns have nested beside the outfall in many years, but probably because of traffic they seem to have moved the biggest colony closer to the glacier.  In the eighties and nineties when I passed this place every year by bike, Great Skua dominated this area with nests in many places.. But today this big bird is hardly seen near the outfall compared to how it was thirty years ago. Arctic Skua is a common bird there as it has been before.
This recording was made a few hundred meters east from the lagoon outfall.
Not far from the microphone are stranded icebergs which are constantly melting with all kinds of sound.
Most common birds in this recording are Arctic tern, Northern Fulmar, Black Headed Gull, and Razorbill. Other species are audible too.
Common Eiders come quietly close to the microphone and Seals have a fight or mating not far away,
The main background noise is a rumble from heavy surf along the Atlantic ocean coastline  several hundreds meters behind the microphones. Traffic from the ring road no1 is also audible.
Quality open headphones are recommended while listening at mid level.
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  (mp3 256kbps / 65.5Mb)

Recorder: Sound Devices MixPre6
Mics: Lewitt LCT540s (NOS)
Pix: Canon EOS-R

Weather: Cloudy, calm, around 8°C
Location: 64.052841, -16.178658

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Breiðamerkurjökull glacier

Posted in Náttúra, tagged , , , , , , , , on 19.10.2020| Leave a Comment »

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Recording Icelandic glaciers aims to be my main passion for the coming years.
Unfortunately, I feel I’m starting too late because the sounds have changed significantly over the last 20-30 years. It is because they have lost a lot of mass, especially on the edges of the glaciers where they mainly produce sound.
It is becoming increasingly difficult to get to places where a glacier is crawling because there are no roads or tracks near the places that are considered suitable for recording today.
Not enough. Most of the glaciers are within national parks and protected areas today. Therefore, I need to apply for a permit to go to various places within the national park to record.
Once in place, it is not a given that it is possible to record exactly where it would be best to get an interesting sound. It must be taken into account that glaciers are not playgrounds and they can be dangerous. Glacier lagoons’ coastline are also dangerous when large pieces of ice fall from glaciers and large icebergs flip over and break down in pieces.
Weather conditions are also important. I am used to record continuously for many hours, even days, so calm and dry weather most of the time is always on the wish list.  
Last summer Jökulsárlón lagoon and Breiðamerkurjökul glacier were my main targets. It was slightly more difficult than I thought in the beginning, mainly because I did not have a clue what microphones worked best for this project so I brought with me microphones for all kinds of situations which is a hell a lot of stuff. In the end it was my parallel MKH8020/8040 rig which worked best for this glacier project last summer. Mainly because glaciers are not so quiet and therefore microphones with the lowest noise floor are not so important . 
It takes me almost two hours to sail on pedal Kayak with all luggage to the location near the glacier. I started immediately to record with two recorders after arriving. Then it takes me almost a day to find the best location for the microphones. It was not the best place to get the highest quality of sound recording. But they were sheltered from the wind and in safe distance from big waves or tsunami from the lagoon.
This following recording is a part of a 20 hour recording on this location. 
WARNING. This recording has a wide dynamic range. It includes several blasts (especially at 6:34) which are very loud that can damage speakers, headphones or your hearing if played too loud.
As usual for nature recordings it has not got any process in post. Just add gain about 20dB. Therefore is clipping inevitable in the „blast“ at 6:34.
Quality open headphones are recommended while listening at low to mid level, or in speakers at low level.

(mp3 256kbps / 56,3Mb)
If the media player doesn’t start to play, please reload this individual blog in new tab or frame

Recorder: Sound devices MixPre6
Mics: Sennheiser MKH8020/8040 in Parallel AB40. Mixed50/50%
Pix: Canon EOS R

Location: 64.109285, -16.243593
Weather: 4°C 2-4m/sek, cloudy

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Sound in Jökulsárlón. Part 1

Posted in Náttúra, tagged , , , , , , , , , on 6.8.2014| 3 Comments »

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I got a grant to record nature sounds in the Vatnajökull national park from the association “Friends of Vatnajökull”. It was not a trouble free trip, but anyway it was very instructive and I recorded many hours of very interesting and lovely sounds. Most of the recordings are long and unbroken. Some of them are up to 6 to 10 hours long so they contains many things I have never heard until now when I am registering the collection and searching for material to publish.
In 22nd of May I spent most of the day near Jökulsárlón glacier lagoon. I recorded around three hours in the lagoon with hydrophones. I was located close to the ejection because there it was most likely to catch some wild life activity.
When I started following recording the current was flowing out of the lagoon. Three or five seals were diving nearby between the icebergs which slowly were moving towards the ejection.
It was stunning when I put the hydrophones in the lagoon.
What a sound! It was much louder than I thought and was both stunning and frighten.
The several thousand years old ice was melting with cracks, screeches and scratching the bottom of the lake. Sometimes I could detect a deep rumble sound in a distance, probably when icebergs were scratching the bottom of the 200 meters deep lake. Comparing to all those loud sounds, everything was peaceful above the surface.

Hljóðin í Jökulsárlóni. 1. hluti

Ég fékk styrk s.l. vetur til að hljóðrita hljóðvist Vatnajökulsþjóðgarðs frá samtökunum  Vinum Vatnajökuls. Það gekk á ýmsu á meðan á því stóð en á endanum var ég komin með mikið af áhugaverðu og skemmtilegu efni. Mikið af þessum upptökum eru langar og ósltitnar eða 6-10 klst langar svo ég hef ekkert hlustað á fyrr en nú þegar ég stend í því að skrásetja upptökurnar.
Þann 22. maí var ég staddur við útfallið við Jökulsárlón og hljóðritaði undir yfirborði lónsins með vatnahljóðnemum. Bæði hljóð og hljóðstyrkur kom verulega á óvart. Þarna var aldagamall ísinn að bráðna með hvellum og ískri um leið og hann skrapaði botninn á leið sinni að útfallinu. Öðru hverju mátti heyra drunur einhvers staðar utan úr djúpi lónsins og stöku sinnum mátti heyra hljóð sem hugsanlega komu frá 3-5 selum sem syntu ekki langt frá upptökustaðnum.
Það var óneitanlega mun háværara niðri lóninu en á yfirborði þess.

Download MP3 file (192kbps / 34,4Mb)

Recorder: Sound devices 788
Mics: Aquarian H2a XLR
Pics: Canon Eos M (see more pictures)

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