The article presents preliminary results of glaciological studies carried out by an expedition of the Institute of Geography of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR in 1984–85 on Austfonna (Nordaustlandet, Svalbard). In order to determine the present regime and the hydrothermal state of the glacier and in order to reconstruct glacioclimatic conditions in the past, the following investigations were conducted: radio echo sounding of ice thickness; thermal drilling of the glacier in the ice divide area to a depth of 204 m; studies of the stratigraphy, structure, physico‐mechanical properties, and isotope and chemical composition of the ice both from a deep drillhole and from the snow‐firn layer; and meteorological observations on the glacier during the field season. It was established that the ice in the ice divide area of Austfonna is 550–570 m thick. Along a profile several kilometers in length temperature variations from 0° to ‐3°C were detected at the lower boundary of the active layer, together with local accumulations of water in firn layers.