U-064 - Toolik Thermokarst
PI: Dr. Michael Gooseff
Project Lead: Benjamin Crosby
Funding Source:
Location: Toolik Field Research Station, Alaska
Dates: 2009-06-27 to 2010-09-30
Project Summary
Alaska's North Slope area is a wide expanse of land that is located north of the Brooks Range and extends to the Arctic Ocean. The land is characterized by the surface "active layer" of tundra that thaws during the summer season, while the underlying permafrost remains frozen year-round. Thermokarst is a land feature that develops when this active layer separates from the permafrost, creating distinctive slumps, gullies, and hollows [see Picture 1]. As the climate in the Arctic changes, there is increasing report of thermokarst incidence. The Thermokarst project is a collaborative effort between 11 institutions that studies this phenomenom in the Alaskan tundra. The research is based out of Toolik Field Research Station [Picture 2], which is a University of Alaska-Fairbanks facility nestled approximately 150 miles south of the Arctic Ocean and 10 miles north of the Brooks Range. UNAVCO provided Terrestrial Lidar (TLS) support to PIs Mike Gooseff (Penn State) and Ben Crosby (Idaho State) for the duration of the summer. Their group has been scanning 3 thermokarst sites close to Toolik with the goal of measuring rates of degradation and characterizing the parameters that dictate when and where thermokarst will occur.