9 August 2017 Final preparations for the trip back

Journal

Checking and double checking

Today is the last field for the ROAM researchers and we are going out with a bang. Part of the field days, besides packing is making sure all the data sheets and scans are backed up and ready to go. Today we went out and collected soil monoliths to be used in the UTEP labs. A soil monolith is a ice chest-sized chunk of tundra.

It's a team effort! — The UTEP team poses after a successful day of digging monoliths.

We collected three soil monoliths that are currently being drained of excess water and getting ready to be packed and taken back to El Paso. On the road getting to the field site, we saw a Snowy Owl and taking back the coolers we saw a muddy lemming!

A muddy lemming — While taking the coolers back to the truck, we stumbled across a cute lemming.

The winds were picking up and so are the waves.

Last Evening in Barrow

For the evening-the team got to go visit the Ice Tunnel. It's an amazing place where the ice crystals formed are perfect! It's a beautiful place to see how Arctic – specifically Barrow – is changing.