Extreme Field Trip
The birds and the trees.
PolarTREC teachers on field excursion to the UAF Large Animal Research Station (LARS). Lindsey Blaine, UAF Institute of Arctic Biology provides in depth tour of the facility.
Lindsey combing out qiviut from Bernie the Muskox.
Well, after yesterday's great excursion to the University of Alaska's Large Animal Research Station (LARS) and the Alaska style potluck dinner at Pioneer Park, I didn't think PolarTREC training could get any better. But it did! We went from extreme cold to extreme heat!
Map of Creamer's Field Refuge
Sandhill Crane at Creamer's Field - Fairbanks, Alaska
Our first stop of the day was at Creamer's Field Wildlife Refuge. Melissa Sikes, program director, gave us an outstanding educational tour of the refuge. We started with a sighting of a Sandhill Crane, which is a common stopping spot for them during this time of year.
Walkway into boreal forest and permafrost area.
We then walked from the wide open active fields to a Boreal forest to a specially managed area called a Willow Carr or wet woodland. This special area was designed to create more habitat for Moose. They set up an experimental area within the Willow Carr with fencing to show how much the moose eat the vegetation. I think they are similar to the White Tail Deer in Pennsylvania in regard to eating our landscaping and undergrowth except they are much, much larger! In the boreal forest we observed the effects of permafrost fluctuations on the surrounding topography. Of the six types of trees that are native to Alaska, none of them are able to penetrate their roots very deep in this area. This was due to the depth of the permafrost being only a few inches to a feet feet below the surface.
Informative sign about unstable terrain, aka drunken forest.
As a result of the trees not being able to establish deep roots in the permafrost, a drunken forest effect is the best way to describe the orientation of the trees. Another interesting effect of the permafrost on the topography was the appearance of polygon shaped landforms. This is due to the freezing and thawing of the permafrost and the cracking that results from that process.
The COOLEST field trip yet!
View of permafrost tunnel. Main tunnel on left goes back 150'. Secondary tunnel goes back approximately 100' and drops in elevation by about 20' going below the silt rich permafrost into a gravel like layer. This is what the gold miners were looking for!
Our next stop was the Permafrost Tunnel at Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory. Dr. Matthew Sturm, a
Research Physical Scientist provided a outstanding overview of the permafrost, including early mining and future research. He then took us into the 150' deep tunnel carved into the side of a bluff. The temperature is kept below freezing year round. At first, the tunnel looked very much like any rock tunnel, until you touched or bumped the sides or roof of the tunnel.
Roof of permafrost tunnel. Notice the objects sticking out of the permafrost. Roots, rocks and Ice Age bones?
Because the local geology is mostly an accumulation of wind blown silt, known as Loess, the material from the tunnel just fell off and created quite the dust cloud.
A perfect example of an ice wedge viewed from inside the Permafrost Tunnel.
If you were to walk on the floor of the tunnel where the loess fell, you would think you were walking on flour. The slightest contact with the tunnel wall released the dusty material so much that everyone had loess on them when they left the tunnel.
The pipeline
View of Alaska pipeline looking north.
The next stop on the field trip was the Alaska Pipeline. It is hard to appreciate the magnitude of the pipeline until you are standing right next to it. The engineering involved and size of the project has allowed it to be considered one of the great engineering projects of the world.
ARCUS
The final working stop of the day was at the ARCUS office. This is where all of the magic happens. All of the PolarTREC staff work from this location to create and produce the most outstanding teacher-researcher program in the world! After a tasty salad and wrap, we journeyed back to the Westmark Hotel to learn more about multimedia in journals. For homework, we had to produce a one minute audio journal of 'The coolest thing I learned at PolarTREC Orientation'.
To top off a great day of training, all of the PolarTREC teachers loaded up in the big white van and drove an hour and a half to Chena Hot Springs to soak their tired bodies. What a great way to end the day!
Please be sure to check out the audio journal and future journals as I prepare for my excursion to Summit, Greenland.
On a sad note, we only have one more day of training, then back to the grind. I will really miss all of the great people and awesome places we visited.
Question of the day: Are Santa's reindeer male or female? Why?