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Beaver, Alaska: The story of a multi-ethnic communityThis work addresses itself to the role that ethno-historical research can play in understanding the present day life of Indians and Eskimos living in a multi-ethnic community in the interior of Alaska. To do this, an attempt has been made to write and analyze the history of the community in a manner that reflects the separate tribal, ethnic, and individual differences of the various people who settled there. Documentation of cultural patterning by different groups enables the researcher to understand the dynamics of cultural persistence and change throughout time in land use, social relations, economic pursuits, attitudes and values. This research does not presuppose that individuals and groups who are influenced by outside intrusions will necessarily respond by changing their ways of life. Instead, the problem has been to investigate the nature of the outside influences and the manner in which these intrusions are perceived by members of the community and the nature of the responses made to them. Written documentation is employed to set an order to the events, but my main reliance is on personal recollections of past events to discern the feelings and associations that people today hold for those forces that have affected their lives in the past and that are now operating
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Seasonal patterns in riverine carbon form and export from a temperate forested watershed in Southeast AlaskaRiverine export of carbon (C) is an important part of the global C cycle; however, most riverine C budgets focus on individual forms of C and fail to comprehensively measure both organic and inorganic C species in concert. To address this knowledge gap, we conducted high frequency sampling of multiple C forms, including dissolved organic C (DOC), inorganic carbon (as alkalinity), particulate organic C (POC), coarse particulate organic C (CPOC), and invertebrate biomass C across the main run-off season in a predominantly rain-fed watershed in Southeast Alaska. Streamwater concentrations were used to model daily watershed C export from May through October. Concentration and modeled yield data indicated that DOC was the primary form of riverine C export (8708 kg C/km2), except during low flow periods when alkalinity (3125 kg C/km2) was the dominant form of C export. Relative to DOC and alkalinity, export of particulate organic C (POC: 992 kg C/km2; CPOC: 313 kg C/km2) and invertebrates (40 kg C/km2) was small, but these forms of organic matter could disproportionately impact downstream food webs because of their higher quality, assessed via C to nitrogen ratios. These seasonal and flow driven changes to C form and export likely provide subsidies to downstream and nearshore ecosystems such that predicted shifts in regional hydroclimate could substantially impact C transfer and incorporation into aquatic food webs.
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Testing nuclear power in Alaska: the reactor at Fort GreelySince WWII Alaska not only has been a major player in the defensive strategy of the United States, but it also has been considered an important military testing ground. This paper will advance the thesis that military operations are often detrimental and, indeed, hazardous to the resident population. Specifically, the SM-1A, a nuclear reactor the Army built at Fort Greely, Alaska in 1962, will be examined with emphasis on the fact that it was used to test nuclear energy production. Additionally, because of the discharge of low level radioactive waste into Jarvis Creek, which runs through Delta, there may be an abnormally high incidence of cancer within the nearby community. Furthermore, this is not an isolated case and other examples of nuclear tests will be presented as evidence.
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Data Submission Package for Manuscript 'Moving beyond the physical impervious surface impact and urban habitat fragmentation of Alaska: Quantitative Human Footprint Inference from the first large Scale 30m high-resolution Landscape Metrics Big Data Quantification in R and the Cloud'_2With increased globalization, man-made climate change, and urbanization, the landscape – embedded within the Anthropocene - becomes increasingly fragmented. With habitats transitioning and getting lost, globally relevant regions considered ‘pristine', such as Alaska, are no exception. Alaska holds 60% of the U.S. National Park system’s area and is of national and international importance, considering the U.S. is one of the wealthiest nations on earth. These characteristics tie into densities and quantities of human features, e.g., roads, houses, mines, wind parks, agriculture, trails, etc., that can be summarized as ‘impervious surfaces.’ Those are physical impacts and actively affecting urban-driven landscape fragmentation. Using the remote sensing data of the National Land Cover Database (NLCD; https://www.mrlc.gov/data/nlcd-2016-land-cover-alaska ), here we attempt to create the first quantification of this physical human impact on the Alaskan landscape and its fragmentation. We quantified these impacts using the well-established landscape metrics tool ‘Fragstats’, implemented as the R package “landscapemetrics” in the desktop software and through the interface of a Linux Cloud-computing environment. This workflow allows for the first time to overcome the computational limitations of the conventional Fragstats software within a reasonably quick timeframe. Thereby, we are able to analyze a land area as large as approx. 1,517,733 km2 (state of Alaska) while maintaining a high assessment resolution of 30 meters. Based on this traditional methodology, we found that Alaska has a reported physical human impact of c. 0.067%. But when assessed, we additionally overlaid other features that were not included in the input data to highlight the overall true human impact (e.g., roads, trails, airports, governance boundaries in game management and park units, mines, etc.). We found that using remote sensing (human impact layers), Alaska’s human impact is considerably underestimated to a meaningless estimate (0.067%). The state is more seriously fragmented and affected by humans than commonly assumed. Very few areas are truly untouched and display a high patch density with corresponding low mean patch sizes throughout the study area. Instead, the true human impact is likely close to 100% throughout Alaska for several metrics. With these newly created insights, we provide the first state-wide landscape data and inference that are likely of considerable importance for land management entities in the state of Alaska, and for the U.S. National Park systems overall, especially in the changing climate. Likewise, the methodological framework presented here shows an Open Access workflow and can be used as a reference to be reproduced virtually anywhere else on the planet to assess more realistic large-scale landscape metrics. It can also be used to assess human impacts on the landscape for more sustainable landscape stewardship and mitigation in policy.
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Alaska Earthquake Center Quarterly Technical Report July-September 2024This series of technical quarterly reports from the Alaska Earthquake Center (AEC) includes detailed summaries and updates on Alaska seismicity, the AEC seismic network and stations, fieldwork, our online presence, and lists publications and presentations by AEC staff. Multiple AEC staff members contribute to this report. It is issued within 1-2 months after the completion of each quarter Q1: January-March, Q2: April-June, Q3: July-September, and Q4: October-December. The first report was published for January-March, 2021.