Fossil Hunting at Longyearbreen

At the head of the valley where Longyearbyen lies, there are two glaciers: Larsbreen and Longyearbreen. Over thousands and thousands of years, Longyearbreen has eroded the mountain beds and pushed out rocks and gravel to create a large moraine. Here one can find 40-60 million year old fossils, mainly from plants. Join us on a journey back in time, and search for fossils in the moraine!

Your guide will pick you up at the hotel and drive to the starting point of the tour: Sverdrupbyen, at the very end of Longyearbyen. From here, you don’t need to take many steps before you have left the town behind and find yourself surrounded by wilderness.

There is no obvious path to follow as we make our way up towards the glacier. The moraine changes from year to year, and has a quite stony and uneven terrain. However, we keep the pace at an easy level, so that we have time to look for the beautiful leaf imprints in the stone blocks. We'll spend plenty of time to stroll around and search for the hidden treasures. If you find a fossil (that doesn’t weigh 3 tonnes) you can take it home with you! After a nice break, with a hot drink and some biscuits, we set course back to town.