Svalbard, Longyearbyen, Norway.

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Svalbard. One of the most remote places in human civilization and one of the major contributors to the rise of the technosphere. 
This project is an approach to understanding the Arctic landscape in the Anthropocene by analyzing and weighting a sample in Longyearbyen.

Longyearbyen is the northernmost settlement in our planet and the administrative centre of Svalbard, Norway. During the past 100 years, it has undergone multiple transformations according to human interests.

The current activities going on in the sample are the reflexion of the society that is growing up.
Inhabiting the traces of a previous monoculture questions the time span of a trace fossil. When does the active and non active technosphere become together?

The mountains surrounding Longyearbyen are no longer conceived as a geological phenomenon but as the imprints that a mining community has left. 24 million tons of coal have been extracted modifying 30264817,2m3 of the lithosphere.

How to understand those numbers?

In contrast, 3 million tons of materials have been brought in in form of buildings, infrastructure and vehicles.
25400 tons of fuel and bulk material are shipped annually to keep the place active, while 69000tons of coal are shipped out every year.
More than 470000 tons are in constant movement with mainland Norway and the rest of the world every year.
300000 tonnes of CO2 have been registered util 2013. 1500 tn of household waste are produced every year.

And no more than 2110 inhabitants.
A small community has modified the landscape in such a bigger scale than we could ever had imagined.