Thermokarst Sampling!

I went out with Sarah again this past Tuesday to help her with thermokarst sampling up the Toolik inlet. She has several stations set up to monitor temperature at various depths. It is impressive how cold it gets just beneath the surface of the tundra! We did some digging to bury new sensors and to bury all of the excess cords. Sarah hopes to leave the sensors out logging over winter, so we were attempting to reduce the amount of machinery above ground that wildlife may take interest in. To the left is the above ground portion of one of her temperature logging stations.

It was fun to dig through the tundra and see the soil horizons. The tundra we were digging in is pretty old, so it has strongly developed soil horizons with marked changes in color. Dan would call this one of my dork out moments, but they are really pretty looking!


While out we also measured frost depth along 3 transects as well as soil moisture, conductivity, and temperature. We visited the ISCO water sampler (a machine that automatically samples water at a set time interval, picture, left) to acidify some of the water samples and check to ensure the machine was okay. Apparently the bears really have an affinity for the ISCOs for some odd reason often destroy them!

After we returned home, I headed up the boardwalk to collect rain samples. The past few weeks the dragon flies have come out in abundance on that hill. They tend to perch along the boardwalk!