Alaska Pacific University Anchorage – Lindsay in the Arctic

If there is one take-away from this Glaciology Summer School that I would want everyone to know (of those who hadn’t already known), it’s that glaciers themselves are a force of nature. Their presence can alter an environment, and their disappearance can affect the environment. We went on a different trek to the glacier front, led by Mike Loso of Alaska Pacific University Anchorage, and saw the glacier’s effects everywhere, from the rocky riverbed left behind as the glacier retreated, to the layers of the mountainside sloping down to the glacier bed below, to the white rock that had been scourged by the glacier…

Here is the Kennicott rive flowing towards us. The treeline/ridge is the terminal moraine (the accumulated soil at the edge of the glacier) during the last little ice age. The riverbank on the left is eroded most years by the annual Hidden Creek Lake flood, aka the “jokulhlaup”, (there’s a new word for most of us) and that boulder was still in that bank as of just a couple of years ago).

Mike showed us this plant, called Dryas drummondii (in the photo is the plant’s seed head). The cool thing about this plant is that it is one of the early species to colonize newly un-glaciated terrain. And it’s a “nitrogen-fixing” plant, which means it takes atmospheric nitrogen and turns it into nutrients, which then benefits the soil for other plants.

There may not be white in front of us, but there is a glacier. Here we are looking out at debris-covered glacier ice. This meltwater pond is next to where Kennicott River is coming out of the ice, and on the right is Bonanza Ridge, home to the old copper mines that used to dot this landscape.

We climbed this beautiful glacier-scoured bedrock which lies near the toe of the Kennicott Glacier. The exposed sediment at the top among the trees is also glacier till (unsorted, unlayered sediment) that was deposited sometime during the last ice age.

This tree has seen it all. This spruce stump, still in growth position, grew in front of the Kennicott Glacier in the late 1500s. It was overrun by advancing glacier ice in the 1600s, where it remained until the late 1900s, when it was exposed in this river channel as the Kennicott Glacier retreated. And it’s still here.

Hello again! After my “Lindsay in the Arctic” expedition last year, I am now embarking on an Alaskan adventure! The University of Alaska Fairbanks is holding an International Summer School in Glaciology, and I will be participating as the Instructor for Science Communication. Taking place this August 2014 in Alaska’s Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, it is truly an international program, sponsored by the National Science Foundation, The Glaciology Exchange Program GlacioEx, the International Association of Cryospheric Sciences, and the Geophysical Institute of the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

3DA24EB7-1DD8-B71C-07867A913E98EA02[1] — Wrangell-St. Elias National Park

The goal of the course is to provide graduate students with access to firsthand research frontiers in glaciology, including remote sensing, glacier geology and hydrology, glacier dynamics, surging and tidewater glaciers and ice streams, glacier response to climate change, and more.

Twenty-seven graduate students from 9 countries who focus on glacier-related research will join 9 instructors for 10 days at the Wrangell Mountains Center in McCarthy, Alaska. Instructors will be joining from the University of Alaska, the University of Birmingham in the UK, the University of Oslo in Norway, Alaska Pacific University Anchorage, and the Patricia and Phillip Frost Museum of Science in Miami (that’s me).

alaska 9 flags — Countries represented by participating instructors and students

There is a good reason why the Patricia and Phillip Frost Museum of Science in Miami is participating in this summer school on glaciers – and that is sea level rise.

Much of the general public is probably not aware of the research being conducted on glaciers, nor how this research may apply to their own lives and environments on the other side of the continent or world. The oceans connect us all, and here in Miami we are particularly attuned to the potential impacts of sea level rise on our beaches and reefs, and the availability of our abundant freshwater. Melting glaciers and ice are one reason sea levels are rising, and the Museum would like to connect you to cutting edge research on the subject. One of the ways we do this is to connect the public with the scientists engaged in this research, and this Glaciology Summer School is an extraordinary opportunity to do that. As an instructor, I will be expanding on the Museum’s local Science Communication Fellows program. I will work with scientists on skills and strategies to effectively communicate their research to the public, and they will share not only their research on glaciers but also their Alaskan adventure with all of you!

And that is what you will get to see here on this blog – in real time! See what they’re doing, you’re your questions, and follow along! And I will help guide the process, so that everyone will understand what brings a Science Curator from Miami, who still lives above sea level, to an Alaskan glacier.

02F0E720-1DD8-B71C-07A290DCE75E206A[1] — Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, Alaska

Tag: Alaska Pacific University Anchorage

The Jokulhlaup

New Alaska Glacier Adventure!