Lake stars and windshield cracks forming all over Alaska
A “lake star” that formed on a Fairbanks lake.
Tohru Saito photo.
As Alaska’s billion lakes become colder and harder, some of them will sport mysterious, spidery cracks extending from small holes in the ice. This phenomenon inspired a geophysicist to figure out what he calls “lake stars.”
“I thought something so pretty and relatively commonly observed should be understandable, so I pursued it,” said Victor Tsai, who wrote perhaps the only paper in existence on lake stars.
Dipper swims throughout Alaska winters
An American dipper on the Sanctuary River in Denali National Park.
Photo by Ned Rozell.
On the upper Chena River in the heart of a cold winter, a songbird appeared on a gravel bar next to gurgling water that somehow remained unfrozen in 20-below zero air. Then the bird jumped in, disappeared underwater, and popped up a few feet upstream.
The bird continued snorkeling and diving against the current of the stream, which is so far north that in December direct sunlight never touches it, instead bathing only the tops of spruce trees with a ruby light.
Alaska's view of the sea-ice minimum
Matt Druckenmiller tows a sled over sea ice in Barrow this spring. His sled contained instruments that measured the thickness of the ice.
Photo courtesy Hajo Eicken.
As the northern end of the globe nods away from the sun at fall equinox, the amount of sea ice floating on the northern oceans is now at the lowest amount ever detected by satellites, a period that goes back to 1979. This new sea-ice minimum follows an extremely cold Alaska winter that led to the formation of thick ice off the northern coast. In spring 2012, it looked like old times for ice floating off northern Alaska.
Girls on the ice of Alaska
From left, Erin McQuin of Snohomish, Washington, instructor Marijke Habermann, a graduate student at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, and Heather Gregory of Anchorage. Habermann had just helped the girls cross a Gulkana Glacier stream on their way back down the glacier after being stuck at a higher camp for an extra night due to a storm. The streams and the glacier were slippery that day after more than 36 hours of continuous rainfall.
Photo by Joanna Young.
This summer, the Girls on Ice program visited an Alaska glacier for the first time. It probably won’t be the last, said organizer Joanna Young.
“We talked about how the girls would be inspired, but we didn’t count on how much we would be inspired,” said Young, a graduate student in the College of Natural Science and Mathematics at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. In July, she, two other grad students, and a mountaineer led nine teenage girls onto Gulkana Glacier for eight days of science and life on ice.
Glaciologists help with recovery of human remains
A UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter from the Alaska Army National Guard prepares to drop off members of the 3rd Aircraft Maintenance Squadron's Crash Recover team on Colony Glacier, Alaska on July 10, 2012.
US Army photo/Staff Sgt. Brehl Garza.
It’s not often that glaciologists help with the recovery of long-lost human remains, but military officials recently enlisted Martin Truffer for that purpose. The University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute professor and graduate student Dave Podrasky came up with useful information on a Southcentral glacier that held plane wreckage and the remains of military men killed in a crash 60 years ago.
Glaciologists help with recovery of human remains
A UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter from the Alaska Army National Guard prepares to drop off members of the 3rd Aircraft Maintenance Squadron's Crash Recover team on Colony Glacier, Alaska on July 10, 2012.
US Army photo/Staff Sgt. Brehl Garza.
It’s not often that glaciologists help with the recovery of long-lost human remains, but military officials recently enlisted Martin Truffer for that purpose. The University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute professor and graduate student Dave Podrasky came up with useful information on a Southcentral glacier that held plane wreckage and the remains of military men killed in a crash 60 years ago.
The tiny universe on the surface of Alaska glaciers
Nozomu Takeuchi, a glacial biologist on Gulkana Glacier in the Alaska Range.
Photo by Ned Rozell.
A scientist wearing plastic boots and crampons knelt on Gulkana Glacier and pointed at the king of beasts, a snow flea.
Twenty feet of snow on Valdez Glacier
Anthony Arendt of the Geophysical Institute drives a snowmachine up Valdez Glacier. Researchers were able to drive almost the entire length of the glacier this spring due to outstanding snow conditions.
Photo by Alessio Gusmeroli.
After a winter of outstanding snow conditions, three scientists drove snowmachines up Valdez Glacier this spring, curious to see how far they could get.
The giant waves of Lituya Bay
The largest splash wave ever recorded, in Southeast Alaska’s Lituya Bay, sheared a slope of trees and topsoil to a height of 1,740 feet above sea level.
Photo by Don Miller, U.S. Geological Survey.
One of the prettiest places in Southeast Alaska has felt some of nature’s most violent behavior.
Lituya Bay, on the Pacific coast about 100 miles southeast of Yakutat and 40 miles west of Glacier Bay, is the site of the largest splash wave ever recorded. In 1958, a magnitude 8.3 earthquake triggered a tremendous landslide into the ocean. The wave that followed reached 1,740 feet above sea level on a hill opposite the slide. The slide also triggered a wave more than 100 feet high that raced down the bay.
Glaciers no obstacle for Copper River and Northwestern Railway
The Million Dollar Bridge.
Photo by Ned Rozell.
Home of the trans-Alaska pipeline, Alaska has been the setting for a few epic engineering battles rendered against nature. The Million Dollar Bridge, spanning the lower Copper River, is a reminder of another improbable Alaska construction project.
