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<\/p>\n4.27.2018<\/p>\n
Made it back to the lower 48. The samples remained frozen throughout the trip and will remain frozen until we start processing them. This trip has been a whirlwind \u2013 but fun. Dave and Peter made this an extremely successful sampling! Alaska is such a beautiful place and a great place to study. I did not see any polar bears, even though the last day I claimed I saw something peculiar that looked like a white animal (it was likely just piled up snow). We did see some arctic foxes, musk oxen, and moose though!<\/p>\n
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The landscape in this area is so beautiful and very interesting things happen in permafrost. Last summer I wrote about solifluction lobes and polygon wedges but this spring I want to introduce pingos. Pingos are another modification of the landscape due to the uniqueness of the freeze\/thaw cycles and permafrost. It was hard to get a good photograph of these pingos but they were abundant!<\/p>\n
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Pingos are mounds of earth-covered ice. They are formed from the draining of a lake or from groundwater. If we recall some of the unique properties of water,\u00a0 1) water is densest at 4\u00b0 and 2) less than 4\u00b0 it expands<\/p>\n
then we can understand why pingos form in permafrost environments. Basically, when a lake drains (the bottom of the lake stays ~4\u00b0 until drained) where this condensed water then freezes and expands up wards creating an ice hill! With a warming climate, there are fractures that form in the active layer of permafrost which induces more melting. This melting can cause a pingo to collapse which, in turn, can then act as another lake! Pingos can host animals, act as a navigational point, or be used for site seeing or for hunting purposes.<\/p>\n
More to come as I start processing this fancy dirt! – Kali<\/p>\n
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4.27.2018 Made it back to the lower 48. The samples remained frozen throughout the trip and will remain frozen until we start processing them. This trip has been a whirlwind \u2013 but fun. Dave and Peter made this an extremely successful sampling! Alaska is such a beautiful place and a great place to study. I … <\/p>\n