Today we visited the "Permafrost tunnel" outside of Fairbanks. This is a large tunnel that burrows into a hillside to study permafrost. It is run by the Cold Regions Research and Engineering Lab. When they started to dig the tunnel, lots of bones started to show up. A closer look showed that they were not the bones of typical Alaskan wildlife- at least not the animals one would expect today. Instead, they were the bones of mammoths, bison, horses and the wildlife that lived here around 14,000 years ago. These bones are very well preserved because they have literally been frozen in time. The soil around them, being permafrost, has not thawed out for thousands of years. This is particularly important because not only are the bones well preserved, but DNA, bacteria and pollen are also well preserved. DNA analysis can reveal a treasure of information on the evolution of these ice age animals and their relationship to modern species. Pollen and bacteria can reveal past climate in the area. I found all of this to be particularly interesting having worked on the "Snowmastodon" excavation in Snowmass, Colorado, where over 5000 bones of mastodon, mammoth, bison, sloth, horse, camel, etc were uncovered. I am interested to learn more on the connections between these two remarkable sites, one in the Arctic and one in the Alpine.
Bones from the permafrost tunnel
Steppe Bison bones frozen into the wall