Norway

Brilliant shades of blue and green explode across the Barents Sea in this natural-color satellite image taken on 14 August 2011. The color was created by a massive bloom of phytoplankton that is common in the area each August. The clear view is a rare treat since the Barents Sea is cloud-covered roughly 80 percent of the time in summer. Plankton blooms spanning hundreds or even thousands of kilometers occur across the North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans every year. Many species thrive in the cooler ocean waters, which tend to be richer in nutrients and plant life than tropical waters. The area in this image is located immediately north of the Scandinavian peninsula. The region is a junction where several ocean current systems - including the Norwegian Atlantic, the Persey, and east Spitsbergen currents - merge and form a front known as the North Cape Current. The intersecting waters, plus stiff winds, promote mixing of waters and of nutrients from the deep. Image courtesy of NASA.

The wharf at Bergen, Norway's second largest city. Bergen served as Norway's capital during the 13th century.

The Berghus Fortress at the Bergen harbor entrance dates from A.D. 1240; it is one of the oldest and best-preserved stone buildings in Norway.

Brightly painted warehouses along the Hanseatic Wharf in Bryggen, the dock area of historic Bergen. Bryggen has been a UNESCO World Cultural Heritage site since 1979.

Statue of Anne Stine and Helge Ingstad, the co-discoverers of the archeological site, dedicated by the king of Norway at L’Anse Aux Meadows in 2002.

Spitsbergen, the largest of the islands in the Svalbard Archipelago, sits well inside the Arctic Circle, just south of 80 degrees north latitude. This image of the island and its topography was captured by NASA's Terra satellite. The rugged mountains are capped with snow and glaciers, with only the river valleys and low elevations supporting vegetation. Braided, shallow rivers filled with glacial sediment occupy the valleys. The vertical scale is exaggerated by a factor of two to emphasize the rugged terrain. The small town of Longyearbyen serves as the capital; its small airport provides the most northerly public airline service on earth. Although coal mining is still an important economic activity on the frigid island, scientists have recently become as interested in what can be tucked away in the frozen mountains of Spitsbergen as what can be extracted from them. In late February 2008, Norway accepted the first deposit for a so-called "Doomsday" agricultural seed vault, drilled deep into the mountains overlooking the Svalbard Airport. Financed by Norway, the Svalbard Global Seed Vault will safeguard seeds of human food crops from all over the world in the event a natural or human-caused catastrophic event would threaten the human food supply. Photo courtesy of NASA.