While out on a springtime snow trail, I recently saw a dozen white-winged crossbills pecking at snow on the side of the trail. When I reached the spot, I saw a yellow stain from where a team of dogs had paused. Last spring, I saw a bunch of crossbills gathered near an outhouse. They were […]
It has been more than half a century since a major tsunami washed itself upon Alaska. The magnitude 9.2 earthquake of March 27, 1964, in Prince William Sound unleashed tsunamis that devastated coastal communities. They wiped out the village of Chenega and wrought damage upon Whittier, Seward, Kodiak and Valdez. A tsunami that day reached […]
Leaders at the Geophysical Institute at the University of Alaska Fairbanks delivered strong support of Alaska as an aerospace state in remarks Wednesday to the Alaska Senate Labor and Commerce Committee. Lt. Gov. Kevin Meyer had announced that Wednesday, March 17, 2021, was Aerospace Day at the Alaska State Capitol. Alaska’s recognized leadership in the […]
In 1958, a magnitude 7.8 earthquake triggered a rockslide into Southeast Alaska’s Lituya Bay, creating a tsunami that ran 1,700 feet up a mountainside before racing out to sea. Researchers now think the region’s widespread loss of glacier ice helped set the stage for the quake. In a recently published research article, scientists with the University […]
The loss of glaciers worldwide enhances the breakdown of complex carbon molecules in rivers, potentially contributing further to climate change. University of Alaska Southeast Professor of Environmental Science Eran Hood was part of an international research team led by the University of Leeds that has for the first time linked glacier-fed mountain rivers with higher […]
In mid-March, it is snowing once again in Fairbanks, as it has snowed on many days since October. That makes it a good day to pick up Matthew Sturm’s new book, “Field Guide to Snow.” Sturm is a snow scientist at University of Alaska Fairbanks’ Geophysical Institute who has studied Alaska’s most common ground cover […]
Volcanologists do what they can to provide the public enough warning about impending eruptions, but volcanoes are notoriously unpredictable. Alerts are sometimes given with little time for people to react. That may soon change. Work led by research assistant professor Társilo Girona, with the University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute, has revealed a method by […]
In 1900, Alaska was home to Native people in scattered villages and camps and recently arrived miners who scraped the creeks for gold. Many of the 60,000 souls on the rivers and hills of Alaska stumbled through a big shake that fall, especially those living on Kodiak Island. The largest earthquake on the planet that […]
Glaciologist Martin Truffer changed his team’s plan the other day. He and a crew of other scientists were about to travel to Malaspina Glacier — near the elbow of Alaska where Southeast Alaska hinges onto the mainland — but the glacier has wrecked his campsite. “Mark Fahenstock [another team member] looked at velocities of […]