Our intent has always been to study feedbacks between
climate and Arctic ecosystems, beginning with polygonal ground and then
broadening our scope of work to include other features like drained thaw lake
basins (DTLBs). These are what remain when thaw lakes on the Arctic Coastal
Plain drain, leaving vegetated areas that can be of various ages and have
carbon cycle dynamics that are different than those of the surrounding
landscape. Ken Hickel, from the University of Cincinnati, has been active in
identifying these areas and we have used his maps to locate the types of DTLBs
that we would now like to study just south of our current field site.
Craig, Ken, and Taniya used a GPS system to guide us to
one of DTLB sites that we had identified early in the week. This was
straightforward since, before he left California, Craig downloaded one of the
Hinkel et al. maps into the system so that we could easily navigate to the
desired location. It was, fortunately, just a few hundred meters off a spur
road south of the Barrow Environmental Observatory. A land-use permit from the
North Slope Borough had been approved last fall and allowed us to now conduct
our research in this area.
Once we located our sampling points, Larry and Bob
positioned the drill rig into place. Ken took over and began drilling what
would be our final two or three cores of the trip. Having drilled dozens of
cores in the last two years, Ken was able to notice that drilling these soils
was a little different than those we drilled on the BEO. Here, the soil
seemed finer in texture and harder to drill. We will analyze the sand, silt,
and clay content, and fractional ice content on all samples...this should be
sufficient to confirm this observation.
The permafrost cores, although harder to obtain than
those from polygonal ground, were of a high quality. Several layers of fine
sediment and organic rich layers were quite obvious. We are keen to get these
samples back to ORNL and LBNL where our groups will be able to conduct studies
on the fate and chemical characteristics of organic matter on the many cores we have collected.
Finally, Larry and I had agreed earlier in the week to give an informal science presentation to the local community. Nok Ackers, who works for the Barrow Arctic Science Consortium (BASC), extended the initial invitation. I met Nok several years ago during one of my first trips to Barrow. As it turns out, Larry returned to Fairbanks earlier this afternoon and thus the presentation was mine to make. I spoke about the integration knowledge gained through field and laboratory studies into climate models. The NGEE Arctic project served as an example. The presentation was at the Inupiat Heritage Center and was attended by several dozen residents. There was a good Q&A session afterwards.
