Today was a beautiful day to be out of the classroom. It was snowing big, fluffy snowflakes, just like we get in Michigan. It looked so beautiful with everything covered by a thick blanket of powdery snow. Today we had two destinations: The United States Army Cold Region Research and Engineering Laboratory (CRREL) and the Trans Alaska Pipeline System (TAPS)
Here I am with fellow Polar TREC teachers Cristina Galvan and Sarah Diers outside of the permafrost tunnel.
The Cold Region Research and Engineering Laboratory is actual a tunnel in the permafrost layer. Regular tourists don't get to go into the tunnel so it was pretty awesome that we got to go inside. However, after entering the tunnel I almost had to reconsider how awesome it was because it smells pretty bad. 20,000 year old decomposing organic matter will do that. It was also really dusty. When you held up a flashlight, you could see all the fine dust particles in the air. This happens when the ice sublimates (changes from a solid directly into a gas) and the fine silt along the tunnel walls that was connected to the ice has nothing more to hold onto so it falls to the ground.
A look down the main corridor of the permafrost tunnel.
The permafrost tunnel also taught me a little bit about the Dry Valleys of Antarctica. A lot of the formations in the sediment that we saw in the tunnel, I will also see when I am in Antarctica. Some researchers are even studying the microbes found in the ice in the tunnel, just like I will be studying microbes in the ice of the Taylor Glacier in Antarctica. Besides all the cool formations in the ice and sediment, there were also remains of extinct animals. The bones are all from an extinct species of bison that were cousins to the buffalo found in the United States. The bones are around 14,000 years old and were all over the walls of the tunnel near the opening. There was even a jaw bone with teeth still in it!
Simone Welch is showing off a 14,500 year old jaw bone from an extinct species of bison.
After the tunnel, we dusted off the smelly silt from all over us and headed to the Trans Alaska Pipeline. It was much bigger than I thought it would be. I stood underneath it and it was amazing to think of all the millions of dollars of oil traveling over top my head. The pipeline transports oil 800 miles from Prudhoe Bay to Valdez, AK. It crosses three mountain ranges, the delicate tundra, and over 800 rivers and streams in its path. It is an amazing engineering feat.
I am underneath the Alyeska Pipeline which carries on average 704,734 barrels of oil per day.