Extreme Environments Objectives: To be able to define the term ‘extreme environment’ To know where extreme environments are located To know the characteristics of extreme environments

Unit Objectives Know the global location of extreme environments Know the challenges to life posed by extreme environments Understand the different strategies for life in extreme environments Describe development in extreme environments

What is an extreme environment?

Defintion: An extreme environment is an area with extreme conditions which are challenging to most life forms. These may be extremely high or low ranges of temperature, radiation, water, salt, carbon dioxide, sulphur, petroleum and many others. Examples of extreme environments include the geographical poles, very dry deserts, volcanoes, deep ocean trenches, upper atmosphere, Mt Everest, outer space and other planets.

Mapping What is the location of extreme environments Success Criteria: Say at least 4 things that are true about their location using map evidence.

Where is this place?

The location of Svalbard

Svalbard and the Golden Compass/His Dark Materials Svalbard is a region the North of Lyra Belacqua's World. The Armoured Bears have their palace here. Lord Asriel was imprisoned in Svalbard in the palace of the ice bears, under Iofur Raknison. Svalbard is also the name of a real location north of the country Norway (which lives in Scandanavia in Europe), and it lies near the North Pole together with a couple of other isles. Its a group of isles itself.

What physical and human features can you observe? QF1o

Longyearbyen A 0o Polar bear Svalbard

Svalbard factfile Complete the fact-file to investigate the physical and human geography of Svalbard

Physical features The cold climate gives Svalbard a distinct physical landscape and processes. Rock, ice and sea are the main landscape features. There is no tall vegetation and only lichen above 1100m. Svalbard is glaciated, 60% of the land is ice covered, and it has small valley glaciers as well as large outlet glaciers draining ice-caps. Ground is permanently frozen and impermeable nearly everywhere above 100m altitude. This is called permafrost and varies from 10m to 45m thickness. Only the very top layer thaws in summer enabling some plant growth. It causes problems for constructing and heating buildings and explains why some buildings and pipes are on short stilts. Glacial landforms include include fjords, glacial valleys, arêtes and nunataks (erosional), outwash plains, alluvial fans and moraines (depositional).

Human features Semi permanent population – most people stay up to 7 years for the purposes of mining, tourism and transport. Whaling goes on there Mining for coal and oil extraction Tourism as a result of the unique landscape Scientific bases on the islands Few settlements – Longyearbyen is the capital

The Northern Lights SM0CIDs Aurora borealis from the international space station Northern lights

The Northern Lights - explanation Auroras, sometimes called the northern and southern (polar) lights, are natural light displays in the sky, usually observed at night, particularly in the polar regions. In northern latitudes, the effect is known as the aurora borealis. The aurora borealis is only visible in the sky from the Northern Hemisphere, with the chance of visibility increasing with proximity to the North Magnetic Pole. Its southern counterpart, the aurora australis or the southern polar lights, is only visible from high southern latitudes in Antarctica, South America, or Australasia. Australis is the Latin word for "of the South." Particles from the Sun (smaller than an atom) are captured in the Earth's magnetic field (the same field that makes compass needles point to the north). The captured energy causes the gases of the atmosphere to become excited and this causes the emission of light with different colours.

Svalbard Seedbank The Svalbard Global Seed Vault is a 'doomsday' seedbank under construction. It will store as many seeds known to humans as possible to prevent important agricultural and wild plants from becoming rare or extinct in the event of a global disaster such as global warming, a meteorite strike, nuclear or biological warfare. There are already over 1400 local seedbanks around the world, but many are in politically unstable or environmentally threatened nations. 1.What seeds would you choose store in the seed bank? 2.Are there any plants, landscapes or environments that you would definitely want protected by storing seeds? 3.What plants do you think are most useful to humans now? How about in the future? 4. Why is Svalbard a good location?