Radioactivity Exploration: From the Arctic to the Antarctic

Our first Arctic expedition was "Ymer-80" conducted during 1980 from June 23 to October 6. The aim was to commemorate the discovery of the Northeast Passage by Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld in 1878-1880. Bengt Forkman, professor at Lund University, engaged the professor in radioecology Bertil Persson, to arrange an environmental radioactivity research program for the Ymer-80 expedition. He in turn engaged his student Elis Holm, who was investigating plutonium isotopes in the environment. For the logistics we found Kjell-Åke Carlsson, mechanical engineer at the department of radiation physics at Lund University. After a successful Ymer-80 expedition, we continued the exploration of radioactivity from the Arctic to the Antarctic with the following expeditions arranged by the Swedish Polar Research Program: The expedition "SWEDARP" 1988 -1989, started from Gothenburg with destination Antarctica. In 1991 the Arctic Ocean with the Swedish icebreaker M/S Oden. During 1994 the joint Swedish-Russian "Tundra Ecology-94" with the Russian ice-breaking research vessel R/V Akademik Fedorov as platform went along the Siberian coastline. Finally, in 1996 the Arctic Ocean with the M/S Oden.