We had another intense training today with lots more great material to absorb, mainly focussing on the mechanics of posting our online journal, managing photos and other media, and responding to queries from our PolarTREC Forum. After that we had an excursion to the nearby University of Alaska, Fairbanks Museum of the North. As you can see in the following photo, we had snow flurries today with some accumulation on tree branches and grassy areas- quite appropriate for polar expedition training!
A snowy day at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks Museum of the North.
Our visit included a special tour of the behind the scenes collections at the museum in addition to the regular exhibit halls (and of course, the gift shop...) The main exhibit hall had a neat mix of cultural and natural history displays. I'm fascinated by the Inuits and their amazing technologies for survival in one of the harshest places on the planet, and the artifacts and information about this culture didn't disappoint. But as usual, I was really drawn to the paleontology exhibits and specimens. In one of the lower level collections, I was especially taken by a rack of Steppe Bison skulls and skull fragments back in a dusty corner of racks filled with ice-age mammal bones:
A shelf filled with Steppe Bison skulls in the collections of the University of Alaska, Fairbanks Museum of the North.
Many museums like this have much more material behind the scenes than in the public areas, choosing only a particularly interesting or complete specimen for the display hall. The Steppe Bison skull on display for the public was indeed a wonderful example of this extinct relative of our modern Plains Bison.
A nearly pristine example of a Steppe Bison skull on display at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks Museum of the North.
One of the crown jewels of the Museum of the North's fossil collection is "Blue Babe", a mummified Steppe Bison so named for the bluish tinge of its preserved hide. Gold miners found it in 1979 as they worked a placer deposit formed by a river around 36,000 years ago. Phosphorus in the animal tissue reacted with iron in the soil to produce a coating of the mineral vivianite on the bison's skin, which turns blueish when exposed to oxygen in the air. Wounds on the bison's back were consistent with attack by an American Lion, a top predator of North America's Quaternary period.
Perhaps 25% larger than modern-day African Lions, the American Lion was a fierce predator of the Pleistocene epoch and one of the largest cats ever to live on Earth.
The bulk of the animal was too much for the lion to finish, however, and the remains were quickly buried by river deposits and subsequently frozen. Although it lost its shaggy fur, the rest of the bison's actual remains were stunningly preserved over the intervening millennia including uneaten bones and soft internal tissues. The captivating display consists of the taxidermied skin and skull, with the remaining bones and tissues stored in the museum's collections.
Blue Babe, a mummified Steppe Bison on display at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks Museum of the North.
Another view of Blue Babe, a Steppe Bison's actual remains preserved by permafrost for 36,000 years and discovered by gold miners in 1979.
Best- Bill