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Weekly Highlights for 5-24-2012

I. Departmental/Bureau News

A. Upcoming Events

No Upcoming Events highlights for this week

B. Current

Real-Time Mapping of Seawater and Atmospheric Methane Concentrations Offshore of Alaska's North Slope
In August 2011, the USGS Gas Hydrates Project conducted a combined geophysical and geochemical survey on the central part of the U.S. Beaufort Shelf in an area largely underlain by subsea permafrost.

http://soundwaves.usgs.gov/2012/06/research2.html
Contact: Mark Shasby Anchorage, AK, (907) 786-7065

Coastal and Marine Geoscience Data System—Single Point of Access for Digital Geophysical and Lidar Data of the USGS Coastal and Marine Geology Program
The Coastal and Marine Geoscience Data System is now online and will eventually provide a single point of access to geophysical and lidar data collected by the USGS Coastal and Marine Geology Program.

http://soundwaves.usgs.gov/2012/06/research3.html
Contact: Mark Shasby Anchorage, AK, (907) 786-7065

Exploring USGS Coastal and Marine Geophysical Data Using GeoMapApp and Virtual Ocean: Tools for Integrating Earth-Science Data
The USGS Coastal and Marine Geology Program has begun a large-scale effort to incorporate the program's publicly available, digital geophysical data into two widely used Earth-science tools, GeoMapApp and Virtual Ocean.

http://soundwaves.usgs.gov/2012/06/research4.html
Contact: Mark Shasby Anchorage, AK, (907) 786-7065

USGS Scientist Participates in the Alaska Nanuuq Commission meeting in Anchorage, AK
On May 30 and 31, Todd Atwood, USGS Alaska Science Center Research Wildlife Biologist, will be attending the Alaska Nanuuq Commission (ANC) meeting in Anchorage, AK. The ANC commission was formed in 1994 and represents villages in north and northwest Alaska on matters concerning the conservation and sustainable subsistence use of polar bears. Atwood will be presenting information from the ASC 2012 field season and our observations of hair loss in polar bears. For more information about ongoing polar bear research please visit http://alaska.usgs.gov/science/biology/polar_bears/index.html.
Contact: Todd Atwood Anchorage, AK, (907) 786-7093

USGS Participates in Coastal Hazards Workshop Sponsored by the Alaska Ocean Observing System (AOOS) in Anchorage, Alaska
On May 30 and 31, Alaska Science Center staff, Tony DeGange, Stan Smith, Dave Douglas and Ben Jones will participate in the Coastal Hazards Workshop sponsored by AOOS. Douglas and Jones will be reporting on sea ice and coastal landforms in western Alaska, respectively, while DeGange and Smith will discuss development of the Alaska Science Center's metadata portal and summarize ongoing research in western Alaska.
Contact: Anthony (Tony) DeGange Anchorage, AK, (907) 786-7046

Reconnaissance Investigation Presents Potential Infrastructure Hazards due to Permafrost Degradation and Hillslope Instability in the South-central Brooks Range, Alaska
USGS Alaska Science Center (ASC) scientists Benjamin Jones (ASC-Geographer) and Tom Hamilton (ASC-Geology Emeritus), along with several coauthors from the University of Alaska Fairbanks recently published a manuscript in Natural Hazards and Earth System Science documenting rapid, downslope movement of frozen debris lobes in the south-central Brooks Range. While these features were previously considered to be stable, the authors found that some features are moving downslope at a rate of several meters per year. The most intensively studied feature is currently less than 70 meters from the Dalton Highway, the main transportation route between the North Slope oil fields and the Alaskan Interior. If the rate of downslope movement of this feature is maintained then this will pose a potential threat to transportation and possibly the Trans-Alaska Pipeline in the coming decades. Here is a link to the paper: http://www.nat-hazards-earth-syst-sci.net/12/1521/2012/nhess-12-1521-2012.html.
Contact: Benjamin Jones Anchorage, AK, (907) 786-7033

Scientists Document the Potential Role of Drained Thermokarst Lake Basins on the Northern High Latitude Carbon Budget, Northern Seward Peninsula, Alaska
USGS Alaska Science Center (ASC) scientist Benjamin Jones (ASC-Geographer) and several coauthors at the University of Alaska Fairbanks recently published a manuscript in the Journal of Geophysical Research Biogeosciences that combined the use of field surveys and coring, radiocarbon dating, and remote sensing to document the role of drained thermokarst lake basins in the accumulation of peat on the landscape as it relates to the northern high latitude carbon budget. Spatial analyses of terrestrial peat depth, basal peat radiocarbon ages, basin geomorphology, and satellite-derived land surface properties (Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI); Minimum Noise Fraction (MNF)) from Landsat satellite data revealed significant relationships between peat thickness and mean basin NDVI or MNF. By upscaling observed relationships, it was inferred that drained thermokarst lake basins, covering 391 km² (76%) of the 515 km² study region, store 6.4–6.6 Tg organic C in drained lake basin terrestrial peat. Peat accumulation in drained lake basins likely serves to offset greenhouse gas release from thermokarst-impacted landscapes and should be incorporated in landscape-scale C budgets. The link to the paper is: http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2012/2011JG001766.shtml.
Contact: Benjamin Jones Anchorage, AK, (907) 786-7033

II. Press Inquiries/Media

NASA Images Using Landsat 5 data from the USGS Global Visualization Viewer: USGS Alaska Science Center Glaciologist Shad O'Neel was contacted by NASA to answere questions about the Columbia Glacier, one of the largest tidewater glaciers in the state of Alaska. The image of the day and text on the Columbia Glacier was posted on May 17 and may be found on NASA's Earth Observatory web site at http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=77938. An additional full set of images and text entitled "World of Change" shows a timeline of images of the Columbia Glacier beginning in July 1986 through May 30, 2011. The set of images illustrates how much the Columbia Glacier has retreated and may be found at http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/WorldOfChange/columbia_glacier.php?src=features-hp.
Contact: Shad O'Neel Anchorage, AK, (907) 786-7088

On May 23, Anthony Pagano, USGS Alaska Science Center Wildlife Biologist, was interviewed by Bob Berwyn with Summit voice regarding a USGS polar bear study in the current issue of the Canadian Journal of Zoology. The May 24 news article entitled "Polar bears: How far can they swim?" discusses a USGS study that tracked 52 female polar bears from 2004-2009, and provides a link to the Alaska Science Center's web page, and quotes Pagano. http://summitcountyvoice.com/2012/05/24/polar-bears-how-far-can-they-swim/
Contact: Anthony Pagano Anchorage, AK, (907) 786-7165

May 18, Chad Jay, USGS Alaska Science Center Research Ecologist, was interviewed by Sharon Oosthoek and answered questions about sea ice change and walruses. Sharon is a Toronto-based freelance environmental journalist writing for Defenders Magazine about how a warming north is causing species to move and interact in brand new ways, including the restructuring of entire food chains.
Contact: Chadwick Jay Anchorage, AK, (907) 786-7414

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