In this photo taken from an aircraft, the atmosphere glows after the United States detonated a nuclear device 250 miles above the Pacific Ocean on July 9, 1962. Photo courtesy of Los Alamos National Laboratory

Research offers defense against energized space electrons

December 9, 2025
Research at the University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute is advancing the ability to quickly clean up Earth’s radiation belts from a...
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The November 2025 cover of the Geological Society of America’s magazine features research by UAF professor Sean Regan and colleagues.

Research straightens out what caused the arc under Alaska’s mountains

December 5, 2025
Two related major tectonic processes that occurred simultaneously 75 million to 50 million years ago created the grand arc on which three Alaska...
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Changing channels

November 26, 2025
Far up in Alaska, between 64.593 degrees north latitude and 66.870 degrees, sit 11 research sites emblematic of the wide-scale change being...
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UAF graduate student Cole Richards installs a high-sampling seismic sensor in February 2019. It is one 400 placed along the Parks Highway following the 2018 magnitude 7.1 Anchorage earthquake. Graduate student Bella Seppi would later use the sensor data in her aircraft research. Photo by Carl Tape

Seismic data can identify aircraft by type

November 18, 2025
Instruments typically used to detect the ground motion of earthquakes can also be used to identify the type of aircraft flying far overhead...
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A light beam produced by the new lidar emerges from the dome at the Subauroral Geophysical Observatory at Gakona. Photo by Mike Roddewig

New lidar advances atmospheric science at UAF research site

November 14, 2025
A new science tool at the University of Alaska Fairbanks research center in Gakona will advance understanding of Earth’s middle and upper...
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Tom Glass and Rodrigo Rangel navigate a beaver pond on the northern Seward Peninsula in August 2024. Photo by Benjamin Jones

Beavers’ Arctic expansion quickens impact of region's warming

November 13, 2025
The climate-driven spread of beaver ponds in Alaska’s Arctic accelerates the effects of a warming environment by causing pond-adjacent permafrost...
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The aurora shines over Fairbanks on Oct. 5, 2024. Photo by Bryan Whitten

Triple blast of solar activity sets stage for active aurora show

November 11, 2025
An unusual triple-whammy of solar outbursts, including one scientists call a cannibal, began hitting Earth this afternoon and is likely to bring...
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Marita and Walt Babula walk hand in hand Oct. 11, 2025, at the site of a 65-seat planetarium. The Babulas made a previously anonymous donation of $7.4 million to the project. Photo by Bryan Whitten

UAF planetarium set for spring opening

October 30, 2025
A decades-long dream of a planetarium at the University of Alaska Museum of the North will come to fruition this spring when the University of...
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Associate research professor Carl Schmitt with the cloud particle imager he developed. Photo by Bryan Whitten

Researcher helps examine puzzling Arctic Ocean ice fog

October 17, 2025
A type of cloud that forms low near Alaska’s northern coast and over the Arctic Ocean lasts far longer than scientific understanding says it...
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Pascal Buri, left, holds a drone ready for flying in the Swiss Alps in August 2021 for the study of how mountain glaciers interact with the atmosphere. Thomas Shaw of the Institute of Science and Technology Austria prepares to pilot the drone. Photo courtesy of Pascal Buri

Mountain glaciers will lose their insulating air layer, study finds

October 16, 2025
A natural cooling mechanism has been shielding the world’s mountain glaciers from increasingly warm summer melt seasons, but new research by an...
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Two Windracers ULTRA aircraft, which ACUASI purchased to test cargo deliveries and emergency responses to remote Alaska locations, occupy a hangar in Nenana. Photo by Jason Williams/ACUASI

ACUASI adds new drones for cargo trials

October 14, 2025
Two large-payload unmanned aircraft have joined the fleet of the University of Alaska Fairbanks’ drone industry development program. They will be...
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Plumbing for answers to an Alaska volcano mystery

October 9, 2025
Mount Edgecumbe volcano in Southeast Alaska sits in a place where a volcano shouldn’t really be sitting. Research underway with new federal...
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Mount Edgecumbe rises in the foreground with Crater Ridge behind and to the north on May 19, 2022. Photo by Max Kaufman/Alaska Volcano Observatory

Scientists aim to map Mount Edgecumbe volcano’s upper plumbing

October 9, 2025
Mount Edgecumbe volcano in Southeast Alaska sits in a place where a volcano shouldn’t really be sitting. Research underway with new federal...
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This map of Northern Hemisphere sea ice concentration for Sept. 24, 2025, also shows the contours of the 15% edge during the years with the least extent of ice (in red) and the greatest extent of ice (in orange) during the period from November 1978 to the present. Image courtesy of NASA

Alaska climate report: Sea ice growth and other winter transitions

October 7, 2025
Sea ice has returned to its annual growing season, though it’s a slow turnaround as usual. The Arctic sea ice extent likely reached its 2025...
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Lee Ann Munk of the University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute at a National Science Foundation event in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 18, 2025. Photo by Steve Masterman

UAF critical minerals proposal a finalist for NSF funding

September 19, 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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Unstable ground

September 16, 2025
Point Lay, Alaska, has been at its current site since 1980, but change has followed. The land beneath the people and their homes is shifting and...
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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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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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