The days blend into one...

The last few weeks I have been working hard to try and get everything done before I leave for Florida in early August. This picture is from one of my many field visits to the Anaktuvuk River Burn. The bugshirt is sadly very necessary- see the mosquitoes flying around my head?

This is the plexiglass chamber and infrared gas analyzing system I use to measure the net ecosystem exchange of carbon dioxide at the burn. We are studying photosynthesis and respiration from plants and soil to better understand how the tundra's carbon balance recovers following a fire. All this is pretty exciting until a mosquito flies into the machine and the numbers start to go a bit crazy!

I took this picture from the helicopter in early July. The white border visible beyond the lake is due to an abundance of Cottongrass (Eriophorum vaginatum) flowers within the footprint of the 2007 fire. Just this week the folks I will be working with in Florida and my current boss published a paper on this fire in Nature. If you are on a university network, you should be able to access the paper here... if you don't have access to the journal, the BBC has a nice article on the fire here.

A very shaggy caribou I came across near our site in the Imnavait creek watershed

Late summer thunderstorms make for some very dramatic clouds over the Brooks Range

Double Rainbow?!?

Brave hikers wearing shorts for traipsing across the mosquito infested tundra on our Sunday off

Crossing the Sagavanirktok River

My what big paws you have?
Sidenote- I hope you all appreciate the hot-pink nail polish I am rocking up here

Beautiful view from the top of Longo's Pyramid

Will Daniels does not fit in the backseat of the truck very happily

The following Sunday (gasp, two off in a row?!) a group of us went to climb Flattop Mountain. Pretty awesome scenery!

Moss garden near the top of Flattop, looking west towards the Dalton highway

Mid-July at the Burn and the Cottongrass flowers have already begun to die down. The open space and bright sky at this site always make me think of the prairie.

Cloudberries (Rubus chamaemorus ) are edible, but I think they taste awful

Nasty f$^*@(s

Site marker at the Burn

Fish are jumpin' and the cotton is high

A butterfly I found on the camp gravel pad that appears to be weighed down by a raindrop

This picture is taken at the same ice-wedge slump that I have pictures of in my previous post... the thawing has continued and now some willow plants are toppling in towards the stream bed.

Marjan in an ice cave

Will, from inside an ice cave

Eriophorum vaginatum (aka cottongrass) is flowering profusely at the site of the 2007 Anaktuvuk River Fire

The border of the burn is visible from the helicopter because of the flowing Eriophorum

Beautiful day on the tundra

Healy, Alaska

This past week I left Toolik Field Station and traveled to Healy, a small town a few hours south of Fairbanks. In August I will be enrolling in graduate school at the University of Florida and my research will be based just outside of Healy. My advisor will be Dr. Ted Schuur and I will be researching nutrient dynamics associated with permafrost thaw. The field site I will be working at is off of Stampede Rd, which you may have heard of if you've read or seen "Into the Wild."

The wood struts to the left of the boardwalk support snow fences that are installed during the winter. The snow drifts that accumulate on the leeward side of these fences acts insulates the soil and provides a 'winter warming' experimental treatment. The tall, plexiglass chambers passively warm the air during the growing season, providing a 'summer warming' experimental treatment.

The blue cables in the foreground are hooked up to a series of autochambers that periodically measure fluxes of CO2. This data is paired with other environmental observations to assess the impact of the winter and summer warming treatments on the carbon balance at this site.

The metal sheeting that is peeking out of the ground here is part of an experimental drying treatment. The sheeting goes down to the depth of the permafrost and a pump is used to lower the water table within the plot.

Wind turbine for powering the sites Eddy flux tower

Denali National Park is just down the road from Healy. I got to make a short visit and explore the area around the Savage River.

Mt McKinley (or Denali)
Impressive, no matter what you want to call it!

The cabin in Healy

One of the sled dogs living in the front yard of the cabin

Scenic overlook on the Parks Highway south of Fairbanks. First leg of my return trip to Toolik Lake!

Anyone have any mint jelly?
This little guy was hanging out along the Dalton Highway near Atigun Pass.

Dust Road Truckers

Wildlife, Wildfires, Wild (insert-noun-here)

Walking over aufeis near Galbraith Airport, South of Toolik Lake

Under aufeis!

Bonding with the Licor6400xt... One of the experiments we are working on this summer involves measuring respiration rates of decomposing leaf litter and roots. This involves many days of sitting in the lab pressing these buttons!

Helicopter flight to the burn sites
Now that the eddy flux towers have been set up for the season we visit them every two weeks to collect the gas exchange data and make sure the instruments are working properly. While at the sites we also measure canopy reflectance and thaw depth.

Goose egg

A burnt tussock (Eriophorum vaginatum) sprouting new growth

Moss regrowth at the severely burnt site

Sunday is my day off, time to go for a hike! This ridge is along the northern rim of Atigun Gorge.

Close up of the tundra showing moss, two different kinds of lichen, and some arctic cranberry leaves (Vaccinium vitis-idaea). Anyone else think this looks like an underwater scene?

A red fox that has taken to hanging around camp.

Eagle on Toolik Lake ice

Thermokarst/Ice-wedge slump
There has been some discussion as to what the proper geocryological term is to describe this feature that has shown up along a stream south of camp. Whatever the name it is definitely pretty awesome to poke around and look at.

Roots 'n dirt 'n ice

Jason sampling the ice

More roots 'n dirt 'n ice! I took these pictures by hanging my camera and arm down into some of the cracks.

This is a sparrow nest that I found in one of our research plots

Birds of doom! These chicks hatched the day before I took this picture... and were eaten the day after I took this picture.

Me and a really BIG gas powered drill!
Photo credit goes to Claire Treat, who was kind enough to let me help her take some permafrost cores.