Poland's participation in Spitsbergen research

[excerpts from the doctoral dissertation of Dr. Blazej Błażejowski].

Polish exploration of Spitsbergen began back in the 1930s and provided major cognitive achievements, as well as abundant fossil collections. We do not know exactly which Pole first reached Spitsbergen. Among the participants of the Russian Arc-of-Meridian Expedition to Spitsbergen 1899-1900 wintering over the Hornsund Fjord was a Pole, astronomer J. Sikora. A memento of his stay is the name of the glacier on the northeastern coast of Sorkapp Land - Sykorabreen. The second Pole in the archipelago, according to written sources, was H. Arctowski, the great traveler, explorer of Antarctica and other polar regions, who in 1910, as a member of a scientific group, took part in the French polar expedition on the ship “Ile de France”. Until the 1930s, the participation of Poles in the study of polar countries, although significant, was nevertheless incidental. In 1932, three Poles, Cz. Centkiewicz, S. Siedlecki and W. Lysakowski, worked as part of the Second International Polar Year on Bear Island.

The first Polish Expedition to Spitsbergen took place in 1934. The results of cartographic research, along with a map based on photographic studies, were published by Zawadzki (1935, 1936) and Zagrajski (1935) in “Wiadomości Służb Geograficznych”. In 1959, the work of S. Z. Różycki was published in “Studia Geologica Polonica”, which is a study of the materials collected on Torella Land during this expedition. It was after this expedition that such names as Copernicus Mountain, Pilsudski Ridge, mountains and mountain ranges as Ostra Brama, Warsaw appeared on maps of Svalbard. This expedition took place three years after Poland signed the treaty, concluded in Paris on February 9, 1920, which ceded the territory of Svalbard to the Kingdom of Norway with the stipulation that all parties to the treaty, as well as those who join it in the future, will have, among other things, freedom of scientific activities.

As part of the participation of Polish scholars in the work of the Second International Geophysical Year (1957-1958), an expedition of 37 people was organized in 1957 to the vicinity of Hornsund Fjord in southwestern Spitsbergen. The leader of this expedition was Professor Stanislaw Siedlecki, a well-known researcher of polar areas, geologist and mountaineer. During the summer season in White Bear Bay (Norwegian name Isbjörnhamna), a base was built creating relatively good working conditions for both the wintering group and the summer groups. In the same year, Prof. Krzysztof Birkenmajer, made a geological map of the Hecla Hoek metamorphic formation at a scale of 1:50,000 in the area north of Hornsund, southern Spitsbergen, working out its stratigraphy and tectonics, and finding several sites with Cambrian brachiopod and trilobite faunas, which are among the great rarities here. Prof. Birkenmajer also made photographic documentation covering the northern coast of Hornsund.

Subsequent Polish Spitsbergen Expeditions in 1959 and 1960 aimed to continue the research begun during the expeditions of the Third International Geophysical Year. During these expeditions  research was conducted on Late Paleozoic and Early Mesozoic formations of the western and eastern coasts of the Sörkap Peninsula (Siedlecki 1964; Siedlecki and Turnau 1964), sedimentological studies in the sedimentary profile of the Carboniferous, Permian and Triassic sediments of the Hornsund interior (Birkenmajer 1964; Siedlecka 1968). Birkenmajer (1964) carried out correlation of Treskelodden Formation formations with stratigraphic division schemes established for other areas of Spitsbergen. Based on the collected materials, fossils of benthic borers (Liszka 1964), brachiopods, corals, bryozoans (Czarniecki 1964), bivalves, gastropods and trilobites (Czarniecki 1969) were described. In addition, Czarniecki characterized the formations and fossil assemblages found in the Treskelodden strata, indicating that these strata were formed in the shallow shelf zone of a normally saline warm sea, and are not sediments of cyclic fluvial-marine sedimentation.

In 1964 - 1965, during successive Polish Scientific Expeditions to Spitsbergen, S. Siedlecki collected a rich collection of Permian bryozoans, later compiled by Malecki (1968, 1977). In 1977 and 1979, the results of research conducted by K. Birkenmajer during several polar expeditions were published.
In 1975-1979, the Department of Paleozoology, now the Institute of Paleobiology of the Polish Academy of Sciences, organized four expeditions to Spitsbergen, the purpose of which was field work and the acquisition of their own materials and fossil collections for paleontological research. The initiator of these expeditions was Professor Gertruda Biernat.

The first expedition in 1974 operated for 3 months in the Hornsund Fjord region. The leader of this expedition was Prof. K. Birkenmajer of the Department of Geological Sciences of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Cracow, and the expedition consisted of M. Kuczynski - technical manager, and scientific workers - G. Biernat, A. Baliinski, K. Malkowski and A. Nowinski. The goal of the expedition was to exploit invertebrate fauna, mainly corals and brachiopods, from Permian and Carboniferous sediments in the Burgerbukta-Treskelen and Polakfjellet-Grimfjellet areas. The work was carried out on the basis of a self-built base-house “Horridonia Hytte”, which has served many subsequent expeditions until today.

The second expedition in 1975, consisting of Prof. Hubert Szaniawski (leader), J. Fedorowski, K. Malkowski, M. Szulczewski and R. Wrona, continued the research of the previous expedition extended to the study of Old Paleozoic, Cambrian and Ordovician formations in the Hornsund Fjord area (Sofiekammen ridge) and in South Cape Sørkap Land (Flakfjellet massif).

The third expedition in 1976, consisting of Prof. Gertruda Biernat (leader), A. Gajdzicki, K. Malkowski, W. Skarzynski and J. Trammer, conducted research on Permian, Triassic and Jurassic formations in the area of Bellsund and Van Keulen (Reinodden) fjords and Isfjord, in central Spitsbergen (Gajdzicki and Trammer 1977).

The fourth expedition in 1979, consisting of Prof. Gertruda Biernat (leader), A. Balinski, C. Kulicki, K. Malkowski and A. Wierzbowski of Warsaw University, conducted studies of Permian, Triassic and Jurassic sediments along the southern shore of Isfjord, in the area of Skansbukta, Coloradofjella, Belvedere and from Elveneset to Deltaneset, as well as at the mouth of Isfjord, in the area of Kapp Starostin, Festningen, Kongresdalen and Linnedalen (Malkowski and Hoffman 1979). In the same year, K. Malkowski and R. Wrona conducted research on Permo-Carboniferous, Triassic and Jurassic formations on the north shore of the Bellsund and Van Mijen fjords.

All four small expeditions, although they had modest logistical resources (plastic boats with a trailed 8 horsepower engine), gathered accurate documentation of detailed paleoecological and sedimentological observations and provided rich paleontological materials. The materials developed were the subject of several doctoral and postdoctoral dissertations and were systematically published in reputable scientific journals. In 1982 and 1991, 2 volumes of “Paleontologia Polonica” were published, dedicated to research on Spitsbergen.

Among other things, they published data on sedimentation conditions and the state of preservation of corals from the Tabulata and Rugosa groups (Fedorowski 1982; Nowinski 1982). A collection of gastropods and bivalves (Karczewski 1982), brachiopods (Biernat and Birkenmajer 1981; Malkowski 1982, 1988), and bivalves (Olempska and Blaszyk 1996) has also been collected. Sedimentological studies, allowed us to determine the conditions of sedimentation of the Treskelodden Formation, as corresponding to the zone of influence of alluvial facies on shallow marine sediments (Birkenmajer 1984b). Studies devoted to the Late Permian Kapp Starostin Formation allowed the development of a facies model for the sediments of this formation. Conodonts have also been developed from the formations of the Kapp Starostin Formation (Szaniawski and Malkowski 1976).

In the last decade, paleontological research has continued with several expeditions. In the summer season of 1997, A. Gajdzicki and A. Kaim, in 1998. K. Malkowski, and in 2005 A. Gajdzicki and B. Blazejowski, conducted studies of the formations and biotic assemblages of the Paleozoic and Mesozoic borderlands of southern Spitsbergen (Blazejowski 2004, 2009; Blazejowski and Gieszcz 2013; Blazejowski et al. 2006, 2013). In 2010, B. Blazejowski (Institute of Paleobiology, Polish Academy of Sciences) took part in the Norwegian Expedition to Spitsbergen and Bear Island (Gorzelak et al. 2013; Nielsen et al. 2013).

In 2010-2012, Krzysztof Hryniewicz took part three times in an expedition of the Natural History Museum in Oslo, exploring fossil faunal assemblages (marine reptiles and benthic invertebrates) from the Jurassic-Cretaceous boundary of central Spitsbergen. In 2015, already as an assistant professor at the Institute of Paleobiology of the Polish Academy of Sciences, he carried out an expedition searching for hydrocarbon fossil faunas in the Paleocene sediments of this island. The trip was organized and held jointly with A. Kaim from the IP of the Polish Academy of Sciences, and was attended by researchers from Norway, Sweden and the UK.