For the first time in American history, a US surface ship has reached the North Pole unaccompanied. The Coast Guard Cutter Healy gained that distinction at 7:47 AM on September 5. This is only the fourth time that a US surface vessel has reached the North Pole, and three out of four times that feat […]
Instead of falling to the dozer blade, the High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program has new life. In mid-August, U.S. Air Force General Tom Masiello shook hands with UAF’s Brian Rogers and Bob McCoy, transferring the powerful upper-atmosphere research facility from the military to the university. You may have heard of HAARP. Nick Begich wrote […]
Many years ago, geologists stood on the bank of the Copper River and watched Childs Glacier thunder icebergs straight into the river. Using a little imagination, one researcher remarked how an advance of the glacier could seal off the big river. He envisioned a process that has happened many times in the world and is […]
This is not Henry Allen’s Tanana River. Nor is it the Trail River of people living here thousands of years before the nineteenth-century government explorer struggled his way down the Tanana. But it seems close. I’m on a family trip down the wide brown river, starting where it arcs from the mountains to Fairbanks. Wife, […]