--------------------
The Ninth International Conference on Permafrost (NICOP), hosted by the
University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF), will be held in Fairbanks, Alaska,
from Sunday, 29 June through Thursday, 3 July 2008. International
Permafrost Conferences are held every five years under the auspices of
the International Permafrost Association (IPA). The IPA was officially
organized in 1983 during the Fourth International Conference on
Permafrost. NICOP will celebrate the 25th anniversary of IPA and the
125th anniversary of the International Polar Year with special IPA
emphasis on the thermal state of permafrost throughout the polar
regions.
Ninth International Conference on Permafrost (NICOP) UAF Summer Courses
The following courses are offered in conjunction with the Ninth
International Conference on Permafrost (NICOP). There are two offerings of
Introduction to Permafrost and Frozen Ground Engineering (one at the
undergraduate level and one at the graduate level) and one offering of
Understanding the Role of Permafrost in a Rapidly Warming Climate.
Introduction to Permafrost and Frozen Ground Engineering (1
undergraduate credit)
June 23-26
CE F495P-F01
CRN: 51624
9 am to 1 pm, Mon., Tues., Wed., Thurs.
Duckering 344 Instructor: Yuri Shur
Email: ffys@uaf.edu
Introduction to Permafrost and Frozen Ground Engineering (1
graduate-level credit)
June 23-26
CE F695P-F01
CRN: 51625
9 am to 1 pm, Mon., Tues., Wed., Thurs.
Duckering 344 Instructor: Yuri Shur
Email: ffys@uaf.edu
Understanding the Role of Permafrost in a Rapidly Warming Climate
June 25-27
ED F595P-F06
CRN: 51743
9 am to 5 pm Wednesday and Thursday
9 am to 1 pm Friday
Akasofu (IARC) 417 Instructor: Kenji Yoshikawa, Larry Hinzman
Email: lhinzman@iarc.uaf.edu
You can register for these courses using the Summer
Sessions Secure Registration Site. If you are not a
U. S.
citizen and do not have a social security number you can enter zeroes in that
field.
Finland
!
Kenjivisited Helsinki
,
Finland
this week for meeting.
Finland
is located almost theother side of
Alaska
that has 11 hours time difference. But many similarities,native people still
have Reindeer and snow country. Kenji met his friend (Prof.Matti Seppala)at
University
of
Helsinki
.
Hehas
other special code name ?Dr. Palsa?! He is studying for Palsa in northernFinland
over 40 years. Palsa is frozen mound usually developed thicker peatarea in
discontinues permafrost regions. One of the our discussion was the siteselection
for our Finland Permafrost Observatory. He is definitely best personto ask
permafrost condition and villages for northern
Finland
. He gave me two potentialsites where are Kevo and Kilpisjarvi.We will most likely install Kilpisjarvi, hopefully thissummer! During
meeting banquet, we visited small island, that have disply famasGerman Sub
?U-boat?. This looks still good shape! More than 50 years!
Emmonak flooding!
Water hasoverflown the banks of the
Kwigkuk
River
in the bush
village
of
Emmonak
onFriday afternoon. Villagers watch the water rise during break-up of the
frozenice on the river. The flooding started behind the AC store and in the
downtownhousing area of the village and covered the main road by 6:00 pm. The
road tothe Emmonak airport has been closed and families are moving from low-lyingareas
to higher ground. They have been on flood alert for two days since theNational
Weather Service warned of large amounts of ice coming down the YukonRiver from
Mt.
Village
are headed for the Yupik village.
(Photo and reported
by Diana DeStafeno, Emmonak)
Ourhero Henry (principal ?Bill?s? son) save dataloggers from this flooding
event! Heand his mother Diana searched instruments at borehole site on Thursday
(May22). He found the sensor/datalogger and wiring in the field. They had to
gothrough about 1 foot of water around the ground temperature monitoringsite.Henry did great job andcontinoe to support our program!!
Thank
you Henry!
4:30pm
on Friday, May 23, 2008
Eagle
Vlad(Vladimir
Romanovsky) and Kenji left
Fairbanks
midnight of May 13 for Eagle. Weplan to look for Tom (Osterkamp) ?s borehole,
to drill permafrost monitoringstation hole and giving lecture at school one day
including 16 hours drive!This is a little bit big day for us. That why we decide
to leave town previousday (midnight). Vlad drove most of the portion until
morning. At 9am, we are atEagle.The
Eagle area has been thehistorical home to Han
people since before the arrival of Europeans inAlaska. The first structure in
present-day Eagle was a log-trading post called"Belle Isle," built
around 1874. In the late 1800s, Eagle became asupply and trading center for
miners working the upper
Yukon River
and its tributaries. By 1898, its populationhad exceeded 1,700. In 1901 Eagle
was the first incorporated city in the
Alaska Interior.
It was named after the eagles thatnested on nearby Eagle Bluff. A United States
Army camp,
Fort
Egbert
, was builtat Eagle in 1900. A telegraph line between Eagle and
Valdez was
completed in 1903. The gold rushes in
Nome and Fairbanks
lured people away fromEagle. Judge Wickersham moved his court from Eagle to
Fairbanks
in 1903. By1910, Eagle's population had declined to its present-day level
(below 200people).
Fort
Egbert
was abandoned in 1911. Present-day Eagle is home to mostlypeople of European
descent, but Eagle
Village has a small
population that is about 50percent Gwichʼin. The town enjoyedsome notoriety as the location of the popular John
McPhee book "Cominginto the country" which was published in the 1970s
(from Wikipedia).
Atfirst
we looking for borehole. Tom with DOT drill 1985 near airport. This datais very
important for us. At that time permafrost temperature was -3.6dC. So weexciting
to check today?s permafrost temperature. About hour later, we cannotfind any
?ordinary? borehole except ?? copper pipe. This looks not Tom?s
normalinstallation. But we cannot find other than this, we think maybe this.
Also capwas open and refreeze inside of hole! We will bring steam system for
thawingnext trip.
Afterthe
cruising around tundra, we back to school to find science teacher (MarlysHouse).
They play baseball beautiful city ground next of
Yukon River
. River isalready open to see mighty power even half mile away from shore. We
setschedule for the class 12:40. Until then we go back to natural forest/tundra
toinstall permafrost monitoring station.
Afterthe
installation, we quick back to school and lecture permafrost to thestudents.
Students are extreamly good and well knowledge. We had a great time,but we have
to leave soon. Road is waiting another 8 hours drive back toFairbanks!
May 10, 2008
Fairbanks
We are back in
Fairbanks
. Weather is completely different from
Bering Sea
!It looks already summer here. We made many progress in this spring trips.
Totalover 60 villages had permafrost station (red dot) now and additional 16
villages
having frost tube or water monitoringstation (yellow dot).Thank youfor your support! We are approaching to edit our annual report
and permafrosthandbook for villages as well as Tunnel Man movie. Stay tune
fartherinformation!
More St. Lawrence island(May7,
2008)
Kenji gave a talk at Gambell school. We had to leave the island after this
talk. Kaji was busy preparing toleave and packing. Outside of school was still
winter looking with stormy wind!However, farther west of sky near Russian coast
see dark gray ?water sky?indicating open water.
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
We gavethree classes (3hours)
this morning at Savoonga. During Kenji?s talk, Kaji run to the borehole site to
download data, fixcap etc. At 12:10pm, class was end, and we eat quick lunch for
moving to Gambell.
Gambell is another
village
of
St. Lawrence
island located west end.
We are almost same as Russian ChukotkaPeninsula for longitude. After we
met teacher Jessica for tomorrow?s classschedule. We hit big problem about
permission! IRA does not want to give thepermission for drilling. Teacher and
Principal help us to explain more aboutpart of school educational program. But
it does happen.
So we cannot do anything, even we haveall equipment and pipes with us!
Monday, May 5, 2008
Kaji and Kenji went to
Kiana
School
this morning to meet students. After30-minute talk, we all go out to see frost
tube and datalogger.
After thedownload data, we went to airport for
Nome
. Pilot (Dave) just got in runway at10:00am, good timing. Three of us arrived
Nome
around noon. We enjoyed lastlunch for three. Dave would leave for Fairbanks
this afternoon, and Kaji andKenji leave for Savoonga (St.
Lawrence
Is.). Cessna (single engine) cannotcross ocean, that why we took scheduled
flight for Savoonga. Thanks Dave fortaking care of us 6 days! After the lunch at
Airport Pizza, we visit Nomepermafrost station to replace loggers.
Flight forSavoonga was smooth but almost whiteout. We met Doug Finn (Science
Teacher) and he took his snowmachine and sledfor drill site. Three of us working
two hours to establish permafrost station.Once we install logger and frost tube,
we back to school.
Sunday, May 4, 2008
It is beautiful morning in Teller. We eat fresh pike at breakfast from
Jay!Cessna try to approach
Wales
after Teller butwe could not by
weather. We head east to Backland (acrossthe
Seward Peninsula
). Backland is beautiful weather and principal Terri andbrother Tim help us to
install permafrost station. Especially Tim stay to helpmost of the time and give
us fresh seefish! After Backland, we went to Noatakto repalace logger. But, we
could not find station by heavy snow. Stan(teacher) call Ezra (one of the
excellent students helps us our program) tocame looking for this. Once he came
ten min. later, he found immediately!Thanks Ezra!
We moved to Kiana to stay John and Mahsa?s apartment. We had a
wonderfuldinner with John?s family and principal Sue.
Saturday, May3, 2008
It is marginal condition at Unalakleet this morning. We decide to go
northinstead of going St. Michael and Stebbins. We change pipes at Koyuk,
Golovinthen fly to Teller. Teller school principal ?Jay? pick us up at airport.
Oncewe are in Teller, we start drilling. It takes two hours to drill and
establishpermafrost station. When we finish installation,Brian (science teacher at Brevig Mission) visit to Jay. Itis great timing
for us to go Brevig Mission. Brian and Kenji use Jay?s machineto Brevig Mission.
When kenji fix borehole and replace datalogger, kenji driveback to Teller.
Friday, May 2, 3008
We stay nice place at
Galena
Charter
School
housing last night! The schoolis located big and comfortable former Air Force
base place. Teacher Shayneorganized nicely for us. We meet student 9am and
replace dataloggers using bigvan.
After 10:15am we go to airport to catch Dave?s Cessna 206 to move
Kaltag.There are still a lot ofsnow
inKaltag. It not easy to find logger site! After a few shoveling, we find
andreplace dateloggers.
Afterreplace, we move to Unalakleet. We have been here last month but we
cannotdrill here for shipping reason. We get drill permission from city and talk
to students. After 3:30pm, Kim driveto the site for us! We drill 3hours to
establish site. After the establishpermafrost station, weeat pizzaand rest.
Thursday, May 1, 2008
It is Beautiful day! in
Fairbanks
. We fly to
Stevens
Village
. School helper?William? drive to runway to pick Kenji up. Kaji and Dave fly to
Beaver forreplace datalogger. Kenji meet Genie and Dora (only two teachers in
school),who met at
Arctic
Village
last year! Kenji immediately start drilling and onehour later,Meeting students for permafrostlecture. Two hours later, Air plane back
to
Stevens
Village
and Kenji is justdone here.
We all move to next village ?Huslia?. About 1hour and 50 min. flying. Weare
at Huslia, Teacher Geoff and many high school students pick us up at runwayand
drive around town to find drill site. End up, we decide drill near air portis
better! All students and us drill and quickly finish because warm sunnyweather
and sandy materials! After install loggers we move to Hughes.
Hughes
isKoyukuk
River
village and old mining activities. We cannot find good spot todrill! Princepal
Bob is great teacher but we decide not drill here and alsoweather getting
marginal. We decide to move for
Galena
.
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
It is snow! I expect beautiful spring day but NOT!
Kenji and Kaji stand by airplane in the morning since 7:30am, Finally
Dave(Wright Air pilot) call us to go by twin engine plane?
aroud noon. This is great decision!Single engine can not fly up cloud but
twin can. We are going to Venetie thenKenji off plane to start drilling. Kaji
and Dave continue to fly for Arctic village. At ArcticVillage,Becky pick him up and tobring to school. Kaji replace datalogger since
last year and return to Venetie.When the Kaji and Dave back to Venetie, Kenji is
almost done drilling. We tell to teacher Carmen datalogger andfrost tube. After
the establish site, we move to
Ft.
Yukon
.
Time is running out quick, after 5 pm,no one can hold in
Ft.
Yukon
.Kenjiand Kaji walk to the
Ft.
Yukon
permafrost site replace loggers. Kenji need abit time to fix cables by chewing
animals. The weather is getting bad here inFt.
Yukon
too at 7pm.
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Thankyou
for your support for our 2008 snowmachine trip. We were safely coming back
toFairbanks. We really enjoy meeting many teachers, students, local
communitypeople... During three weeks of trip, we run total 1450 miles, visited
24villages. We just made short 3-minute movie for this trip summary. Ifyou
have a chance, try following address:
We have planed thefollow-up
trip next week to download data, fixing pipes etc using Cessna 206.You will be
able to see ?Where are we flying ?? everyday at our website
www.uaf.edu/permafrost .
Our detailed
scheduledepends on weather. It will be hard say when we are where?!
However, If you check
ourblog. You can find out where we are! And see a lot of pictures!
Expected date for visiting schools
April 30:
Eagle, Circle, Chacktiak, Ft.Yukon,
Arctic
Village
, Vinetie,
May1:
Beaver,
Stevens
Village
, Tanana, Allakaket, Hughes,
Galena
May2:
Huslia ,
Kaltag, Unalakleet, St. Micheal, Stebbins, Kotlik,Emmonak,
May3:
Koyuk, Golovin, Teller, Bravig Mission,
Wales
May4:
Backland, Pt.Hope
May5: Noorvik, Kiana, Noatak, Kivalina,
Nome
May6:
Savoonga, Gambell
Friday, April 25, 2008
We are preparing follow up trip by using Cessna 206. Wright Air support
forthis one week continue village trip. We had a bit cargo problem for our
snowmachine trip last month. Especially earlier schools were not enough
materialsto set up permafrost monitoring station and also some of the village
was onlydrill hole without meeting students because of arriving weekend. So idea
ofthis trip will be complete instrumentation and meeting students, but
alsoestablish new schools too.
Here is challenge part!
We try to visit as many as possible villages between April 30 and May 6.
Youwill find out how many villages we can do via this web page. We will
alsoupload a lot of aerial photos of beautiful part of
Alaska
! Stay tune!
Tuesday,April 15, 2008
Wewere
back to
Fairbanks
. Our 2008 snow machine trip was over. It was nice massivefocused three weeks.
Four of us worked hard everyday straight. Total 1450miles,we run across the
western
Alaska
visited 24 villages.Many students
and teachers did support our program. Wedeeply appreciate all of them. Our final
active report will postour web site shortly. You can see our 3minutes summarized movie at
You Tube (
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63otvsYatwQ
) or our web site (
http://www.uaf.edu/water/projects/permafrost/sm2008/sm2008/smtrip2008/bigcountry.htm
). Please check this movie "The BigCountry"!
Finally,I
remained Fridtjof Nansen?s message. I always find out dreams
andgetting energy for the future exploring from the last paragraph of his
FarthestNorth (1897).
The
ice and the long moonlitpolarnights, with all their yearning, seemed like a far
-off dream from anotherworld - a dream that had come and passed away. But what
would like be worthwithout its dreams?
Sunset (
Kotzebue Sound
)
Friday, February 15, 2008
McGrath
After we move to McGrath school. We join Nicole's middle school science class
and high school chemistry class. all students are well knowledge and great
time. Once class room talk was done, we go out to drill frost tube and deeper
temperature monitoring hole. frost tube site are developed out side of
classroom and white spruce forest floor. deeper borehole was installed about
2km east of town, where presence of permafrost.
Kaji and Kenji visit Takotna and McGrath on Monday. Takotna is located about
20 miles west of McGrath. Principal (Bob) pick us up at runway by snowmachine
(He has nice 4 stroke Arctic Cat!). After arriving school, we install frost
tube. Bob help with us all the time during -14dF cold outside. Early
afternoon, pilot (Mike) pick us up for fly back to McGrath.
Our poster is presenting at Alaska Forum of the Environment, Anchorage. It is
great exposure to show our activity to the state wide community. Kaji and
Kenji stop by the Egan convention center on Sunday. If you need poster, let me
know we may make copy for you.
We have new member to help our program. His name is "Kaji" who is
UAF graduate student at department of Journalism.
So he is very good at recording our activity!
We (Kaji, Tohru and Kenji) visit Healy and Anderson schools to give a talk and
check out frost tube.
Most of the schools in Alaska start this week.
We are also try to work hard and to make exciting year for 2008.
Our tentative time schedule for this year is following:
January 1 - May 16: Visiting schools around Alaska and Yukon Canada
including snow machine trip along the coastal villages
May 16-May 30: Greenland
June: Tibet
July: Siberia
August: Mongolia
September- December: Back to Alaska
We are hoping more than 100 schools participants in this program at the end of
year 2008!
Thank you for your support.
Any question, please send e-mail for us!
We wish you a great successful and exiting year for 2008.
There are now 40Permafrost Monitoring Stations successfully established in
Alaska, Siberia, Canada, Mongolia and Greenland. We will continue to install
more stations at schools in all of the Arctic Countries. Please check
www.uaf.edu/permafrost for updates of our new members!
In the web page you will find our new “Frost Tube” program. This program
is aimed to monitor changes in the active layer throughout the school year.
NSF Globe program, ACM program and TSP programs are our collaborators for
creating a strong monitoring network! We are extremely happy this year because
several proposals were awarded towards this project from NSF IPY and NASA.
This will be great step for us to be able to visit more schools and establish
monitoring stations.
The International Polar Year is a large scientific program focused on the
Arctic and the Antarctic from March 2007 to March 2009. IPY, organized through
the International Council for Science (ICSU) and the World Meteorological
Organization (WMO), is actually the fourth polar year, following those in
1882-3, 1932-3, and 1957-8. IPY will involve over 200 projects, with thousands
of scientists from over 60 nations examining a wide range of physical,
biological and social research topics. It is also an unprecedented opportunity
to demonstrate, follow, and get involved with, cutting edge science in
real-time. We are happy to be part of an IPY project!
Thank you for your support!
Happy Holydays!
Tohru Saito & Kenji yoshikawa
Tohru Saito and Kenji Yoshikawa participant American Geophysical Union (AGU)
in San Francisco. AGU is one of the biggest earth science meeting in the
world. more than 10,000 scientist came from all over the world. We present
both poster and oral presentations for our permafrost outreach program. We are
so grad to talk many people who interest our effort.
Vladimir Romanovsky and Kenji Yoshikawa met near Gulkana airport for measuring
permafrost temperature. Prof. Tom Osterkamp set up this site since mid 1980s.
This is one of the most exciting monitoring sites for all science community.
We had a little bit hard time to work by the cold morning. But we successfully
measure nice temperature profile.
Kenji had a opportunity to talk for local community at night. Janelle and Dave
(Wrangell Institute for Science and Environment (WISE)) organized and prepared
fantastic place (National Park Service). There is great team work with Glenn
Hart (Program Manager at Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve). It
was nice Friday evening with good audience and staff.
Kenji met students and teacher (Jason Garman) at Delta Junction High school on
November 29 and again December 1st. Jason help Kenji to install frost tube
next of nature trail.
Kenji visit Kenny Lake on November 29th and 30th. After the classroom lecture,
Kenii and Students download data from permafrost monitoring station. Kenji
also install frost tube for monitoring active layer just next of the station.
Two full year data at Pearl Creek Elementary School!
Pearl Creek Elementary School (Fairbanks) had the oldest permafrost station in
our network.
We compare difference between 2006 and 2007 dataset at the multi-age
classroom.
We re-visit Pearl Creek Elementary School today. This is third visiting for us
and already full two year data collected from here. Students are well
understand permafrost, especially multi-age class works great for teach each
other.
After we read frost depth using frost tube, we cloth looked two years data and
discuss difference between 2006 and 2007.
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Frost tube works great!
The students from Randy Smith Middle School visit their permafrost (frost
tube) monitoring site to read the depth of the ground freezing!
Wednesday, November 7, 2007
Frost Tube at Randy Smith Middle School
Frost tube is great way to monitoring seasonal frost layer. It is easy to make
just corored water fill in the clear tube. Whatever the ice formed, ice does
not include color. the bounday of color and clear is bounday of freezing
front!
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Big Triangle part 2 (Northway)
Next morning (Oct.23, 2007) after we download data from Kenny Lake, We start
drive for Northway another 180 miles. The way go up to Northway, we stop by
Gakona, Chistochina, Slana, Mentasta Lake schools for future borehole
establishment!
Northway is the almost boder village to Canada. That why some of the students
have relatives in Beaver Creek (Canada). We arrive village after 6:00 pm and
start drilling.
Drill is quite easy in the frozen sand all the way to 6m. We finish all of the
installation around 8pm.
On Wednesday morning, Kenji met science teacher (Jennifer) and students. We
have a chance to talk two classroom until noon. Then after checking
temperature, we head back to Fairbanks.
Big Triangle part 1 (Glennallen, Kenny Lake)
We (Tohru and Kenji) have a plan to visit schools in the Copper River
watershed area this week.
Big triangle means the road system making triangle shape between Delta
Junction, Glennallen, and Tok in Alaska. At first we stop by Gakona study
site, then download Glennallen high school.
After the download, we move to Kenny Lake. At the Kenny Lake school, we
install datalogger and sensors.
Cantwell, Denali Science Center, Healy, and Anderson
We had busy schedule for visiting four schools today!
At first, we drove straight to the Cantwell from Fairbanks (150 miles) in
snowy condition.
Once we arrived Cantwell, we discussed with pricipal (Pete) about frost tube
and heaving monitoring issue.
After the installation for the frost tube, we went to Denali Center (but not
install in this time). Then we went to Healy to install frost tube.
After Healy, we went to Anderson. School was already ended and no students
around. but Tricia (science teacher) and principal Dr. Geoffrey Buerger was
waiting us to schdule drilling.
There was little bit difficult drilling in Anderson. Because of glacial
sediments were mainly gravel and boulder! We did use classic percussion method
to install PVC pipes.
We are back in Fairbanks this week. It is nice to be back in our hometown.
We drilled again on Thursday and established a permafrost monitoring station
and a frost tube monitoringt site at Randy Smith Middle School.
I spent all day giving permafrost presentations to a total of six classes.
However, I feel great and not tired because students were so good and patient.
After the presentations, Mike and Kenji installed the datalogger and frost
tube in the monitoring station in the school yard.
Science teacher Mr. Mike Geil is a really nice teacher and also all of the
students are really good and know a lot about permafrost!
By the time we were back to Whitehorse, Panya already download the data from
the Whitehorse permafrost station.
Data shows very warm permafrost! (you can download from our web site.!
Takhini Hot Springs is a nice hot spring close to Whitehorse, about 20 min
away. Tohru and Kenji soaked in the outside pool and celebrated the succsseful
Canada field trip.
However, on the way back to Alaska, Winter finally caught up with us! driving
in the slippery snow was difficult and slow.
The Beaver Creek permafrost station was also already covered by snow.
We just download the data and changed batteries, and then crossed the border
to the US.
We flew from Old Crow to Inuvik, and then back to Dawson with Air North, which
is the only way out of Old Crow.
From Dawson, Tohru and Kenji got back on the truck and headed to Faro (another
500km drive!).
Kenji collected water samples at major river crossings along the way.
The road condition was not great because of snow and the wet dirt-road. We
made it to the B&B past 10pm.
Next Morning, we drove another 60km to Ross River.
Most of the students remembered Kenji.
Kneji demonstrated how the thermisters worked and showed the students what a
spectrometer does.
After the talk in class, we downloaded the data and changed the datalogger
batteries.
After visiting the Ross River school, we rushed back to Faro.
Then talked to two classes at Faro in the afternoon. Again, Faro students
remembered Kenji and was able to further disscuss about permafrost, and
learned about their monitoring station.
We met students in the morning at the Robert Service School, Dawson. We all
went out of the classroom and installed temperature sensors in the borehole.
After the measurement of the temperature, Panya, Tohru, and Kenji catch up to
the airplane for Old Crow.
Old Crow is the only remote village in Yukon Territory, Canada. Other rests of
villages are connected with road system.
We arrived in Old Crow around 12:00 noon and met principal Vaino Latvala and
science teacher Manuela Zeitlhofer. We had snowstorms during our visit.
However, we success to install a datalogger and sensors in the borehole.
After buying supplies we left Whitehorse and headed for Dawson.
We had lunch at Five Finger Rapids Lookout.
We arrived in Dawson around 2:30 and met principal Philip Cull and science
teacher Liz Wood.
At the site, Panya first dug out the dirt layer, and then the gravel layer
with a shovel.
After the hole was about 50cm deep, Kenji strated drilling the borehole.
At about 3.70cm deep we hit another gravel layer and stopped drilling.
And a successful permafrost monitoring station was installed.
Since we could not go as deep as we wanted, we tried drilling in another
location.
The drilling went on well into the evening, but we stopped after hitting a
couple of gravel layers.
This is exciting news! Cantawell school can join us to establish permafrost
station.Cantwell School Principal and Science Teacher (Peter Hauschka) support
our program. Tohru and Kenji leave 5:30am at Fairbanks for catching 9am
science class at Cantwell. Cantawell is about160 mile south of Fairbanks (It
takes about 3 hour drive). We made on time and great time with students. after
the lecture, we had a big challenge to find permafrost. This area is sporadic
permafrost region and thick glacial till and outwash (gravel and boulder!). It
is not favable to drill and to look for permafrost. Finally, we success to
find permafrost by opinion from local residence.
Tohru and Kenji visit Manley Hot Spring on 21st of September.
Basically, we were trying to drill a deeper hole next to the existing
hole at this time. When we drilled the first hole in the Spring of 2007, we
could only go 3.5m deep.
We thought it was because the permafrost (and the air temperature
that day) was very low and ice was re-forming on the bit.
So, we wanted to give it another try to get down to 6m.
That is the standard depth for the outreach program.
Anyway, the drilling did not go well.
The reason why we couldn't go deeper was because there was a layer of
gravel.
With the equipment we had it was a bit too much to tackle at the time.
So there's no change in the system or the monitoring station.
Tohru and Kenji visit Healy on Sep. 20. When we look at temperature data, we
do not see permafrost indication at schoolyard site. There was permafrost in
70s-80s. this site is degradating permafrost last 20 years!
We are visting Wainwright. Wainwright is quiet beautiful beach side village
little south west (70mile) from Barrow. Art Clark (USGS)and his team drilled
here in June and to spike through the permafrost (330m). He donate this hole
to local school education. This is one of the greatest hole and also extreamly
deepest(380m).
Vlad and Kenji had good time with high school students and new teacher (Emily)
in the morning. then Vlad start measurements to the borehole. Al (principal)
cordinate to meet student with Kenji. About 160 students are here in this
town.
Vlad (Romanovsky) and Kenji (Yoshikawa) came back to Barrow on Sep.17.
Kenji had chance to talk new teacher (Emily) and students. After classroom,
Kenji replace datalogger.
We are finnaly back to Alaska!
School was already start almost one month ago! We are going to catch up 2007
fall semester outreach program.
At first, Vladimir Romanovsky and Kenji Yoshikawa went up to North Slope
villages (Barrow and Wainwright). I will wright travel report next a few days!
Nuuk is our last vititing for our Greenland trip. Nuuk is the capital of the
Greenland (Karallit Nuunat) as well as biggest city.
We look for permafrost here. Most of the land in Nuuk is absence of
permafrost.
Permafrost is only presence at the base of north facing slope but also thicker
peat area.
We would like say that this is southern boundary of the permafrost
distribution in Greenland!
After the drilling, we packed up and back to Fairbanks.
After two boreholes established in Ilulisat. we are moving to Sisimut. Sisimut
is second largest town in Greenland and has technical collage. We stay in
collage cabin and fix most of the augers at thier wearhouse.
After look around boreholes in Kagerlussuaq, we are move to Ilulissat.
Ilulisat is beautiful town (population 4000). The name "ilulissat"
came from
"ice berg" in Greenlandic. Many icebergs were alway surround town.
We drill three boreholes to install data loggers.
Kenji was drill camp right bank of Lena River, when Vlad and Misha drilling at
Lensk.
We are separating and each operation going quite well. After a week later, we
all back to Yakutsk. Permafrost Institute set beach party for us!
We were back to Fairbanks on August 21st safely.
Then Vlad and Kenji again leave Fairbanks for Greenland on August 29.
Vladimir and Mikhail go to Lensk for drilling school program. School is still
summer holydays however, three students have interesting in this program. They
are very well understanding computer software and quickly to operate
dataloggers and reading temperature.
After organising temperature cables, we install sensors to borehole.
We picked up Kenji's luggage at airport. Then we catch another airplane from
another airport for Yakutsk.
Yakutsk is located along the Lena River 6 hour plane ride from Moscow. There
are many interesting culture by the native Yakutian, especially, horse meat
stew was excellent! Also world famouse Yakutsk Permafrost Institute is located
this town.
Our host and lead Scientist Prof. Mikhail Zheleznyak pick us up at airport.
