Today, our team divided and conquered.
Anna and Kelsey headed off to repair some of the chewed and water-logged data loggers discovered yesterday, before retrieving information from another Flux plot. Dima, Cathy, Elliot, and I headed across the oil field to West Dock, a CALM site identical in layout to the Betty Pingo site probed yesterday. Each of these CALM sites are 1 kilometer grids, with poles stuck in the ground every 100 meters. Because there are lines of poles on either end of the 1 kilometer plot, there are 11 rows and 11 columns of poles (121 in total) spread evenly across the tundra. At each of these 121 poles, two measurements of thaw depth (active layer) are taken. That accounts for a whopping 242 measurements, and several kilometers of walking in between! Elliot and I were proud to accomplish the all measurements in three and a half hours. Check back tomorrow for a video detailing the ins and outs of thaw depth probing...
Elliot and I tackled the 1 square km West Dock CALM site in three and a half hours. Here, we were probing 100 meters apart - the closest we were to one another throughout the day.
While Elliot and I probed muddy tundra, Dima put his Differential Global Positioning System to work. The DGPS provides very precise and useful information, but as Dima will be the first to tell you, takes a long time to accurately log data. Dima predicted that he would be intermittently operating and waiting for the DGPS to acquire signals for 7 hours today; he about nailed his estimate. Meanwhile, Cathy collected temperature, moisture, precipitation, and solar radiation information at her soil monitoring station there at West Dock.
Spending several hours shin-deep in tundra, one begins to notice unique topography that abounds the region. A phenomenon that is common across the Arctic - and which is found frequently at our field sites - is ice wedge polygon formation. Ice wedge polygons are identified by honeycomb-like patterns that occur across tundra soil. The shapes they form are analogous to those created by mud as it dries and cracks, although the formation of those shapes is a bit different. Ice wedges are cracks in the ground formed by water that has frozen, expanded and exerted its force on surrounding soil. Over seasons, the wedges grow, fill with more water, freeze, and expand even further. When networks of these fissures intersect, they form polygon formations in the earth.
Here, a textbook example of ice wedge polygons at West Dock.
The shapes created by cracking mud - photographed here at the West Dock CALM site - are similar to those formed by ice-wedge polygons.
After another full day of data collection, we retreated once more to the Caribou Inn for dinner, gear repair, and the coordination of tomorrow's plans. In the morning, we begin our drive to Toolik, where we will be stationed for the next several days.
Elliot solders some split wires on a few chewed-on data loggers.
Back home in New Orleans, severe weather is causing school to be canceled for the first scheduled day (Thursday, Aug 12). Here's hoping all are staying dry in Louisiana. Look for special student information, along with some additional researcher profiles from Cathy, Elliot, Ellen, and Kelsey tomorrow and in the days to come.
'Til tomorrow,
Josh