Farewell and Thanks

Awesome river goo growing at Toolik Lake Outlet. A crew of us wandered around here and went for a swim on my last day off.

Wanna ride? This lil guy looks like he's been rusting out on the tundra for a while now.

This year the terrestrial folks at Toolik Lake performed a HUGE biomass harvest out at the Anaktuvuk River Burn. Soils, litter, organic matter, and plants were all collected in 10cm x 20cm quadrats along various transects within the footprint of the fire. Once harvested, the material in these quadrats was to be sorted into about a hundred different categories. "Plucking" apart the tundra like this requires man-power, patience and a sense of humor.

Us pluckers hard at work. Our lab looked like this for the better part of week, 12+ hours a day. Topics of conversation included moss identification, clarifying the difference between attached and unattached pre and post fire litter, research interests, musical likes and dislikes, and what substance you would most like to jump into a swimming pool of. Eventually, though, most conversations centered around one question: How the hell did we all end up here in a trailer tweezing apart moss for hours on end?
The wonderful folks around this table where what made the tedious work possible and it was a pleasure to get to know them better. The only downside of participating in this pluck is that I occasionally catch myself sorting my salad greens by species.

Before Plucking

After Plucking
The categories this bit of tundra was sorted into include Eriophorum green blades, attached post fire litter, attached pre fire litter, Eriophorum rhizomes, live green moss, and Eriophorum sheaths (listed clockwise from top-right).

Burn, baby, Burn!
Just some of the soil that was carefully sorted through for roots and rhizomes.

Post pluck, time to sit on the back deck and drink a beer. Don't forget the Deet!

On my last day of fieldwork I flew out to the Burn Site to make a series of chamber measurements. These are some pictures of fog that was rolling around a valley we flew over. Pretty breathtaking!

~Adios~

This week I left Toolik Lake and began my journey south. I am currently in Woods Hole, MA but come Wednesday I will be hopping in my car and moving Gainesville, Florida. Next summer I will be returning to AK to begin work on my graduate research. Check back for more pictures then!

Thanks to everyone at Toolik who made it an incredibly fun and productive home for my last two summers. I will try to sneak my way back whenever possible!