Most of Point Lay’s residential area sits on permafrost that is rapidly thawing. The subsiding ground exposes more of each building’s support pilings. UAF photo by Benjamin Jones

Research highlights rapid permafrost thaw at Point Lay, Alaska

September 16, 2025
A team of scientists working with local residents has detailed the rapidly accelerating “catastrophic” permafrost thawing and infrastructure...
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The seasonal transition that began in August and continues in September is well underway in Interior Alaska. The season’s changing colors are visible around the West Ridge of the University of Alaska Fairbanks Troth Yeddha’ campus in early September. UAF photo by Eric Marshall

Alaska climate report: August, a time of meteorological change

September 9, 2025
August was a bit of a weather yo-yo in some parts of Alaska. Kotzebue, Nome and Bethel had warm weather in the month’s first week but cooler than...
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Drilling to the bed of thick, flowing ice is highly challenging and has never been undertaken for the sustained period required to maintain the drainage of subglacial water, the researcher paper’s authors write. Illustration is from the research paper

Researchers reject geo-engineering as a climate-warming response

September 9, 2025
Proposals to reduce climate warming in the polar regions through geo-engineering rather than carbon emission cutbacks would be dangerous and...
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Some of the 300 people who attended the 2024 Alaska Defense Forum listen during a session at the Westmark Fairbanks Hotel and Conference Center. The 2025 forum, set for Aug. 25-27 at the 8 Star Event Center, is the sixth year the forum has been held. Photo by RED Photography

Geophysical Institute organizes defense forum to discuss shared goals

August 21, 2025
The University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute has organized this year’s Alaska Defense Forum, which brings together military leaders...
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Hunga Tonga–Hunga Ha’apai volcano is one of 12 confirmed submarine volcanoes along a segment of the larger Tonga-Kermadec volcanic arc. Photo courtesy of Tonga Geological Services via the Smithsonian Institution’s Global Volcanism Program

2022 Pacific volcano eruption made a deep dive into Alaska

August 20, 2025
Atmospheric waves from a massive 2022 South Pacific volcanic eruption created seismic waves that penetrated Earth to at least 5 kilometers in...
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Debris from an Aug. 10, 2025, landslide in Southeast Alaska spilled into Tracy Arm and onto South Sawyer Glacier. Dirt, rock and debris now fill an area of the fjord in the lower left of the photo. Image from video by Lt. Chip Baucom and Cmdr. PJ Johansen, U.S. Coast Guard

Tsunami-causing slide was largest in decade, earthquake center finds

August 12, 2025
Sunday’s massive tsunami-causing landslide in Southeast Alaska likely sent more than 100 million cubic meters of debris into an icy fjord and...
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Monthly mean temperature departure from normal, July 2025, at selected stations in Alaska. A technical issue in Yakutat is causing erroneously high temperature readings at the station.

Alaska climate report: Above and below normal, July had it all

August 12, 2025
Nome was a hot place to be in early July. The temperature was 20 degrees above normal at one point during that period, according to the monthly...
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This chart shows warning times that could have been provided in advance of peak shaking from the July 16, 2025, magnitude 7.3 earthquake near Sand Point, Alaska, if Alaska had an early warning system. Chart courtesy of Alex Fozkos

Research shows early quake warning system could provide critical seconds

August 5, 2025
A proposed earthquake early warning system could have provided several Alaska communities an alert of 10 seconds or more ahead of strong shaking...
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Explore

New eyes on our planet

August 1, 2025
UAF's Alaska Satellite Facility has a key role in revolutionary U.S.-India Earth-observing mission. The joint satellite mission of NASA and the...
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The Indian Space Research Organization’s Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle lifts off from Satish Dhawan Space Centre on India’s southeastern coast with the NISAR satellite at 4:10 a.m. Alaska time Wednesday. ISRO photo

UAF satellite facility to manage massive NASA data surge

July 31, 2025
Years of preparation by the Alaska Satellite Facility will ensure that a flood of freely available data from a NASA-India satellite mission that...
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This file photo shows the research vessel Sikuliaq in Alaska's Resurrection Bay. UAF photo by Eric Engman

Sikuliaq underway on unique Alaska coastal research voyage

July 25, 2025
A 2,500-mile, 16-day research cruise that began Thursday in Seward and concludes in Nome aims to advance environmental research in coastal Alaska...
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Tiny crystals give insight to major eruption

July 23, 2025
Knowledge about Mount Augustine volcano’s past is key for understanding its next unrest — and it will erupt again. Its history says so. And...
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Research assistant professor Florian Hofmann of the UAF Geophysical Institute’s Geochronology Lab works on the lab’s argon mass spectrometer. Photo by JR Ancheta

UAF critical minerals proposal advances in federal funding competition

July 14, 2025
A University of Alaska Fairbanks proposal to reduce the United States’ dependency on foreign sources of minerals critical to the technology and...
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A steam plume with minor ash extends northeast from Augustine Volcano on Jan. 30, 2006. Photo by R.G. McGimsey/Alaska Volcano Observatory/U.S. Geological Survey

Tiny crystals provide insight to massive 2006 Augustine Volcano eruption

July 11, 2025
Samples of extremely small crystal clots, each polished to the thickness of a human hair or thinner, have revealed information about the process...
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The St. George Creek Fire burns on June 21, 2025. The fire is about 40 miles south of Fairbanks. UAF/GI photo by Martin Stuefer

Alaska climate report: June jumped from cool to hot, hot, hot

July 11, 2025
June began cool and wet but rapidly changed to hot and dry at the midpoint, with wildfires bursting out across the state, according to the...
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Planetarium construction continues at the west side of the University of Alaska Museum of the North on UAF’s Troth Yeddha’ Campus in Fairbanks. UAF/GI photo by Rod Boyce

Planetarium construction begins, Murdock Trust joins project

June 24, 2025
Construction has begun on a new 65-seat planetarium at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. The project, approved by the UA Board of Regents in...
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A University of Alaska Fairbanks professor has published a new mathematical framework for three-dimensional time. TheDigitalArtist/Pixabay

UAF professor’s work is a step toward elusive ‘theory of everything’

June 18, 2025
Time, not space plus time, might be the single fundamental property in which all physical phenomena occur, according to a new theory by a...
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Alaska Earthquake Center Director Michael West testified at a congressional subcommittee hearing on May 20, 2025, regarding bills for volcano, earthquake and landslide hazard programs. Photo taken from subcommittee video.

Alaska Earthquake Center director at Congress: Renew three hazards programs

June 17, 2025
Reauthorizing federal programs that help warn of volcano eruptions, earthquakes and landslides is essential for reducing fatalities and the...
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About

Since it was established by an Act of Congress in 1946, scientists at the Geophysical Institute have studied geophysical processes from the center of the Earth to the surface of the sun and beyond, turning data and observations into information useful for state, Arctic and national priorities.

Contact info

The GI is located on the West Ridge of the University of Alaska Fairbanks campus.

2156 Koyukuk Drive
University of Alaska Fairbanks
Fairbanks, AK 99775

We acknowledge the Alaska Native nations upon whose ancestral lands our campuses reside. In Fairbanks, our Troth Yeddha' Campus is located on the ancestral lands of the Dena people of the lower Tanana River.

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