....is this your first visit to my journal? Start on Day 1! Don't worry, we'll wait till you get back
Google map of Fairbanks.
Back in the field today – but this time at sites outside of Fairbanks, Alaska. It is much warmer down here! For the next week I will be helping Christina Minions with pulling data and taking permafrost thaw depth measurements at sites that are a part of a study on Winter Respiration in the Arctic – one piece of the much larger NASA ABoVE (Arctic Boreal Vulnerability Experiment) project. I'll explain more about this in upcoming journals (meaning, once I've asked enough questions to explain it better).
We visited two sites, Bonanza Creek and Eight Mile Lake. Bonanza Creek is near Fairbanks and Eight Mile Lake is near Healy. This meant a lot of truck time, giving Christina and I a chance to get to know each other. I played an episode of one of my favorite scary story podcasts, Spooked, and we both got a little freaked out by a story about a taxidermied squirrel coming back to life. We'll have to download some better content for tomorrow's ride.
To get to Bonanza Creek we had to hike in about a mile – not too hard, except we had to carry a very heavy battery. Since the site is located in a more wooded area, the battery is needed to keep the instruments running all winter.
Trees shade the solar panel limiting its energy production.Cool mushrooms at Bonzana Creek.Lichen growing on trees that looks like a old man's beard – this is a sign of a healthy forest.
The site at Healy was much closer to the road and had wide open geography – so no need for a extra winter battery. At this site we are very close to Denali National Park, but in the wrong spot for views of the big mountain. Healy Site.We feasted on tundra blueberries after we finished.
Stay tuned for tomorrow when I will tell you all about my super skillz (yes, with a Z) taking thaw depth measurements.
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