21 June 2014 Wolverine Lake

Wolverine Lake and a Thermokarst

Today we were able to make the helicopter flight across the tundra to Wolverine Lake. We were supposed to fly there two days ago, but we were fogged in. Today was partly cloudy and the skies were open to allow us to take flight.

Check out this video of our flight to Wolverine, it will help provide you with a bit of a better sense of what the landscape looks like up here. See what observations you make about the landscape and leave them in the comments section. The video was taken while wearing a Go-Pro on my head, so it gives you a sense of what I saw on the flight. I tried not to make sudden movements to avoid making you sick, but it's hard when there's so much to see!

Flying over the tundra!

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I am working on another journal all about permafrost to better explain what it is, and why our research is so interested in how these areas of thawing permafrost are related to the microbes in the water. So stay tuned!

Summer Solstice

Today is also the summer solstice. This means that it is not only is it the first day of summer but also it is the day of the year when the northern hemisphere experiences the longest period of daylight. This longest day is because the sun is at its furthest north position in the sky.

I happened to wake up in the middle of the night last night to go to the bathroom and took my camera with me to show you the sun's position. It was 3:00 am and the sun was still shining brightly. Today I looked up the exact time of the solstice (or the exact time when the sun would be at it's furthest north position) and it was 2:51 Alaska time-- so these pictures were taken within about 10-15 minutes of the solstice! Pretty great coincidence!

Species Journal

This morning as I was walking from breakfast to our lab I spied a large white object swimming around in the lake. I pulled out my binoculars (every good science nerd/naturalist has a pair on them at all times, right?!) and checked it out. Sure enough it was a tundra swan finding its own breakfast. It was too far away for a good picture-- it was a white spec with my camera.