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UAF Research News
  • Two women row a boat with a cabin that sports buckets, water jugs and other items strapped to it. The boat rises on a wave while headed toward a golden sunset.

    Marine scientist rows across the Atlantic

    March 14, 2024

    None of the four members of the Salty Science team had any rowing experience. But they had enthusiasm.

  • A large snow-covered mountain rises above lower peaks and glaciers in the foreground in an aerial view.

    Why is Denali so tall?

    March 07, 2024

    Denali, North America's highest peak at 20,310 feet above sea level, always seemed abnormally high to Peter Haeussler.

  • A black dog stands by a trail in the snow that passes through a puddle filled with chunks of ice. In the background is a high bank on which spruce trees grow.

    Wet overflow a winter hazard in Alaska

    March 01, 2024

    While following a snowmachine trail recently, my dog and I came to a low spot that looked like a swimming pool filled with ice water. The air temperature was about 5 degrees F.

  • A man pokes a ski pole into a shallow pool of water surrounded by dead grass where heat from the water has melted back the surrounding snow. Spruce forest and a birch-covered hill are in the background.

    Alaska hot springs, far and wide

    February 23, 2024

    After a few hours of skiing through deep snow, Forest Wagner and I smelled a tuna sandwich. We knew we were closing in on warm pools of water.

  • Landslide at Taan Fjord

    New detection method aims to warn of landslide tsunamis

    February 21, 2024

    University of Alaska Fairbanks researchers have devised a way to remotely detect large landslides within minutes of occurrence and to quickly determine whether they are close to open water and present a tsunami hazard.

  • Sunshine lights fog in a wide valley with mountains in the background. A plume from a power plant rises above the fog.

    Ice fog not often a part of northern life

    February 16, 2024

    An old friend -- a character not seen in these parts for a few years -- showed up last week in Fairbanks.

  • Rusty brown water flows in a stream between leafless willow shrubs. Mountains in the background have patches of snow.

    The rusting of northern Alaska streams

    February 09, 2024

    During these late winter days, researchers who are studying the rusty discoloration of northern Alaska streams are prepping for summer field trips.

  • Three people stand in snowshoes on a snowy hillside in spruce trees with gear, bags and sleds around them. Snow-capped mountains rise in the background.

    Magma found beneath volcano-less country

    January 26, 2024

    For years, scientists have wondered why North America's highest mountain is not a volcano. All the ingredients for volcanic activity lurk deep beneath Denali, which sits right above where one planetary plate grinds past another.

  • A woman holds a trowel and a dustpan while sitting on a flat dirt surface.

    On the ancient trail of a woolly mammoth

    January 18, 2024

    The female woolly mammoth was 20 years old when she stumbled amid the grasslands. She fell in a cloud of dust, then gasped her last breath of cool air. It was a late-summer day, 14,000 years ago.

  • Artwork by Julius Csostonyi shows three mammoths being watched by a family of ancient Alaskans from the dunes near the Swan Point archaeological site

    Woolly mammoth movements tied to earliest Alaska hunting camps

    January 17, 2024

    Researchers have linked the travels of a 14,000-year-old woolly mammoth with the oldest known human settlements in Alaska, providing clues about the relationship between the iconic species and some of the earliest people to travel across the Bering Land Bridge.

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