FRAM embarked on her fabled voyage on Midsummer's Day, 24 June 1893. On the 22 September 2023 in the vicinity of the New Siberian Islands FRAM was forced to a final halt and was caught in the ice. The drift, however, did not go in one fixed direction as Nansen had predicted. Instead, the FRAM drifted in the right direction for a few days, only to backtrack to her point of departure.
Often there was no progress at all for several weeks, driving Nansen and the crew to distraction. His theory had been dealt a serious blow. It was generally assumed that the Arctic Ocean was a shallow body of water, possibly with a mainland at some point. As the crew took regular soundings of the sea bottom, the measurements indeed pointed to a shallow polar basin, but this was only true initially. As the drift took the FRAM away from the coast, the waters increased in depth.
When the bottom fell away to 4000 fathoms, and the sounding line could be lengthened no more, Nansen admitted that his theory of the current was not as valid as he had thought. Giving the enormous volumes of water in the Arctic Ocean, the supply emanating from the Gulf Stream and the Siberian rivers could only have a minimal effect on the current. Nevertheless, the drift did flow to the north and west.
Read more important facts at Fram.NL.
Just In! The Norwegian explorer and humanitarian activist Fridtjof Nansen (1861-1930) is the subject of today’s Google Doodle, marking the 156th anniversary of the adventurer’s birth.
Who was the legendary Norwegian explorer and humanitarian activist? Find it out at The Independent.