Terraforming Fugloya Island

By Louise
23 December 2022

Fugloya Island was a favourite place of mine during our expedition to Arctic Norway. It is a bird sanctuary for puffins and razorbills, but for me it was the geology that got me excited - the black and white zebra stripes characteristic of migmatites. Migmatites are one of my favourite rock types, formed in high-grade metamorphic terrains when conditions allow partial melting but no melt migration. As such, they form white bands of crystalline minerals like quartz and feldspar trapped between bands of magnesium and iron-rich minerals that aren’t quite ready to melt yet.

It is, therefore, no surprise, that Fugloya and the surrounding area are where I want to situate our VR experience (we also had a lot of luck finding orca and humpbacks around there). Today I have been having lots of fun modelling the terrain and seafloor of this magical locality.

Thanks again to Ian Lochhead, PhD for the workflow for getting the terrain data into Blender.