A smoking mountain near the Yukon River not far from Eagle is, after further study, still a puzzle. People first noticed acrid smoke in September 2012. The mountain has been steaming ever since, even through the coldest days of winter. Scientists thought a likely cause for the smoldering mountaintop was an oily rock deposit that […]
One foggy day on St. Paul Island, a woolly mammoth stepped onto a trapdoor of greenery. It plunged thirty feet to the floor of a cave. There was no exit. A few thousand years later, a scientist who descended by ladder found the mammoth’s tooth amid the bones of other mammoths, polar bears, caribou, reindeer […]
Once again, Pacific Walrus are hauling out on the beaches in northwestern Alaska as the sea ice retreats beyond their reach. NOAA estimates as many as 35,000 have hauled out onto the beach five miles to the north of Point Lay. Prior to the massive melts that have occurred in recent years because of climate change […]
During our planet’s most recent cold period, a slab of ice smothered Manhattan. Canada looked like Antarctica but with no protruding mountains. When the last glacial maximum peaked about 20,000 years ago, most of the continent — from the Arctic Ocean to the Missouri River — slept under a blanket of white. Alaska was different. […]