Brooks Range

For several years now I have been pretty good about including at least a short blurp about field work. This has actually served me well, even just for finding a few photos. But somehow with the pandemic and very reduced field work I didn't even manage to keep up with the small amount I did. So here we go.

Last August I had the opportunity to fly Chris Larsen's Lidar in the Brooks Range. We covered the Gates of the Arctic, which I knew a little bit from a previous trip and then the Arrigetch Peaks, which are a small very remote and stunning mountain range. There are only a few small glaciers left in this area.

 

 

 

 The endlessly meandering Alatna River

 

 

 Arrigetch peaks with a few of the remaining glaciers

 

 

Mt. Igipak

 

 

 The Gates of the Arctic

Frozen debris lobes

 Recently I had an opportunity to look at something else in the frozen world: Frozen Debris Lobes. These are masses of debris on mountain sides that contain ice and become mobilized. As was made clear to me, they are not rock glaciers. If you don't believe me, watch this. My favorites are Infiltration Ice and Not a Rock Glacier.

I brought a Terrestrial Radar Interferometer up the Dalton Highway to try to measure the motion of these debris lobes. We have used this instrument on glaciers quite a bit, but it turns out to work really well on slower moving things as well. After a few hours of measurements we could confirm that one of the lobes moves at about 15 cm/day. 

Here is a look at FDL 7. It is a feature just left of the center of the image across the valley.

 Here is how the radar sees it (the units are in meters/day)

This picture was taken on top of a debris lobes. Opening cracks split this tree into five sections.

Margaret Darrow, the frozen debris lobe lady

Frozen Debris Lobe A is just about to take over an old road bed of the Dalton Highway. The highway was moved downslope a few years ago.