Living on the Edge - Alaska 2008

****My computer is back and I have added Shannon's last Blog below!!****

Today has been a long day - starting with the black bear that wandered through camp at 2am this morning and caused quite stir at the not so tidy campsite across the road. The bear went past Joe and Jon's tent waking them up after it past between my tent and Garver's tent. Garver woke me up, I was certain it was just the very healthy, large arctic ground squirrel and that there was nothing to be worried about. Garver spoke with Joe and Jon by the time the bear moved on. Lenny and Sam slept through the whole thing, as did Amanda and Kaitlin, Shannon did wake up and got a recap from the guys. So yes quite the start to the last day! A lot of fuss for a squirrel if you ask me.
While we were cleaning up for our flights home the students worked on some final thoughts. Unfortunately Shannon's final thoughts might have been the final thoughts EVER written on my computer - it won't turn on, so her final words are a secret for now. But we do have everyone else's final words and a few more pictures to share. In the next couple of days there will be some movies and links to other photos posted. This was an awesome trip and Garver and I are very impressed with by what the students have accomplished - well done - it doesn't get better than this!!

Joe: To sum up the past few weeks I have to use the words awesome, sweet, schist and fish-on. The professors were able to captivate everyone on the trip and maintain the most extreme and fascinating outdoor classroom possible. We saw wildlife on every turn ranging from mouse to moose and bees to bears. There is something mesmerizing about standing at the foot of a calving glacier and feeling it’s thunderous collapse. This trip was a great learning opportunity and I would do it over again in a heartbeat.

Jon-Hot-Diggitty-Dog, what a trip, what a class, what a crew. These three weeks have flown by and it’s been a blast. For me it was like Christmas every morning, I couldn't wait to get up and get going. I have so many incredible memories from this trip including one little adventure last night when a bear came running through our camp at 2:30 in the morning. I can’t imagine coming to Alaska with a better group of kids, everyone was amazing.

Amanda: I can’t believe our three weeks here in Alaska are already up! After our exam last night, we shared our favorite parts of the trip, and one of everyone’s top favorite days was the Childs Glacier hike where we saw some unreal glacial calving. This trip has been an amazing start to my senior year. It has given me a lot of insight about myself and what I’d like to be doing in the future after graduation. I have met some truly remarkable people on this trip who I hope to spend a lot of time with at Union when we return. I will especially miss Kaitlin’s sleep talk that I usually wake up to every night. One of my favorite lines was, “My chocolate? I’m not in the fish.” I hope to return to Alaska in the near future and spend some time exploring this place on my own.

Kaitlin: As we pack up to leave, it seems hard to believe that our three weeks here are over. Our last campfire was full of good stories, videos and lots of laughs, a true indicator of a great trip! I have learned so much and am thankful for the great friends I have made here- this is definitely a great start to my geology career at Union. Although I will have to do without my nightly smore-making at home, I look forward to our reunion back at school!

Lenny: Today I am leaving Alaska, I’m left with bittersweet feelings as I’m excited to go home but I am going to miss Alaska. The whole trip has been exciting from the start of the trip on Kodiak to the end around Denali. We were able to witness spectacular natural events like the calving on Child’s glacier, the Grizzly walking across the Copper River Delta and the water flowing through the ice caves under Castner Glacier. Hopefully I will be back here again soon.

Sam: This was an eventful three weeks. The group learned a ton about Alaska, and our largest state. My favorite two stops were the Kennecott mine and the Gunny Sack Creek. I found the diverse mineralogy very interesting at both these stops. I also really enjoyed the Childs Glacier calving. I learned many new concepts, not only about geology , but about environmental science as well. Camping was certainly a new and interesting experience for me. I will never forget this trip.

Shannon - Looking back on this trip to Alaska, I am unable to think of a better way to start off the summer. I was surrounded by eight other adventurous, outgoing individuals for the past three weeks and there was never a dull moment within the group. Although the trip was an amazing experience, there are several specific events that reign above the rest as my favourites. The hike on Childs Glacier was one of the most memorable moments because it was my first glacier encounter and the massive calving events were mind blowing. Nevertheless, the simple activities such as swimming in the Pipeline Lake, hiking on the McKinley Trail, and sleeping outside on the ferry during our return from Kodiak will remain in memory forever. The wildlife sightings were remarkable as well. All in all, I couldn’t have asked for a better trip to the Last Frontier. It was an incredible opportunity that I am extremely happy I took advantage of. Thanks to everyone for this fabulous experience!

Hi ALL,
Thanks for your patience with us. We have been so busy and only just now are getting a chance to update you. We have been busy since we left Valdez and headed into the largest National Park - Wrangell-St Elias to see the headwaters of the Copper River and the now abandoned Kennecott Copper Mine facilities. You will be happy to know that once we got over the Chugach Mountains (just outside of Valdez) our weather finally started to treat us right! After McCarthy we had a long travel day to the north side of the Denali Fault where we camped at Donnelly Creek for 3 nights. At Tangle Lakes we ran into the rain again :( for our drive across the Denali Highway, a very rough and remote road. The last two nights we have been at Denali National Park's Riley Creek, with some great weather (with the exception of this morning's rain). Today we are heading to Independence Mine just northeast of Anchorage and then onto Eklutna Lake Campground for our Final night (the final exam and the last night of the trip). On Wednesday morning we will get ourselves repacked, showered and ready for the flights home! There might even be a chance for a final thoughts blog posting from the Anchorage Airport. But for now read what the students have been up to for the last week and a bit!

Lenny- Today was our first full day at Denali National Park. We woke up to some wet and cloudy weather, but the sun made it out half way through our hike along the Savage River. After breakfast we took a look in the visitor’s center and then headed up the park road to the Savage River. The bridge across the river is the farthest point which you can drive into the park without being on a special tour bus. We started our hike at the bridge, where the Savage River’s channel is characteristic of a braided river. After about ¼ of a mile the river abruptly changes to a straight channel. This straight channel has higher energy then the braided channel, and has been down cutting through the narrow valley which we hiked through. Throughout our whole hike through the valley we were able to see the folded rocks of the Birch Creek Schist. During the last 6 million years the area around Denali has been undergoing uplift. This uplift is a result of the curvature in the Denali strike-slip fault, As the fault curves, rocks are essentially squeezed and folded causing them to be uplifted. This uplift is responsible for the creation of the Alaska Range and the folded rocks along the Savage River. We continued hiking down the river to the knickpoint (or waterfall) which had been buried by an alluvial fan. Below this point the river is fairly straight and continues to cut down into the Birch Creek Schist. In the middle of our hike we stopped for lunch above the river and were lucky enough to spot a few Dall Sheep high on the mountain across the river. After lunch we headed back to the van and drove back down the park road towards camp, on the way we saw two caribou a few hundred feet off the road.

Sam: On July 3^rd we made a variety of stops. My favourite, however, was our third stop at Gunny Sack Creek. This creek flows into the larger Delta River flowing north towards the Yukon River, and contains the Birch Creek Schist Formation. Schist is a highly metamorphosed rock rich in micas. The high mica content is analogous of a shale + sand protolith. Other than micas several other minerals were present, such as green chlorite, actinolite, some feldspar, an alteration mineral known as fuschite (chromium-rich mica)), and several quartz veins containing sulfides. Among these sulfides I was able to find my own personal samples containing what looks like chalcopyrite (a copper ore mineral), pyrites cubes, calcocite (another copper ore mineral), and possibly trace amounts of gold and silver (which have both been found in this area before).

Joe-On July 6^th the group woke up and had a wonderful breakfast at the Tangle Lakes Inn just down the road from our campsite. Following the breakfast we traversed the rest of the Denali Highway. Just north of the Denali National Park entrance outside the town of Healy, we stopped at an outcrop along Suntrana Creek near the Usibelli Coal Mine. This outcrop of the well-exposed the Usibelli Group has great stratigraphy with five units of interbedded sedimentary rocks and lignite coal deposited on an unconformity above the Birch Creek Schist, a part of the Yukon-Tanana terrane. Usibelli Group deposition began in the early Miocene, probably in a swampy and low-energy depositional environment. In the contacts above and below the coal seams there are visible changes caused from the coal catching fire. The fine-grained sandstone above the coal seam was changed as if it were put in a kiln and fired, the resulting rock are called clinker. The transition in color of the section that received the most heat from the coal fire is noticeable and has a darker color, it is melt rock. Aside from the wonderful geology that drew our group to the Tangle Lakes campsite for the night of July 5^th, I must mention we had phenomenal fishing. I had terrific results in the lake and on the river with a size fourteen Royal Coachman. Everyone who has fished on the trip has now landed at least one fish!!

Jon- Last week we made an important stop in Valdez, not only to check out the geology but also to tend to some laundry and take a warm shower! Old Valdez was built on a delta, meaning it rested atop gravel and sand. The shaking from the 1964 earthquake caused the sediments to de-water, a process called liquefaction, and as a result the front end of the delta failed. Much of the delta slid into the water including the port facilities. This along with other slumps displaced a large volume of water and generated a local tsunami. As if this wasn’t enough the liquefaction and shaking also caused several tanks at the Union Oil Company to rupture sparking a fire that spread across the waterfront. Old Valdez was devastated and since then Valdez has been moved to more stable land on the side of the bay (behind an old glacial moraine). Since this stop obviously a lot has happened. Some highlights for me include: five amazing hikes, one taking us inside a glacial cave, a breakfast buffet at Tangle Lakes, landing a grayling with Garver’s fly rod, some beaver pond swimming, lots of hangman, and of course jamming to the Dixie Chick’s.

Kaitlin - In McCarthy in the Wrangell Mountains we started off our day with an eventful shuttle ride to Kennecot. Before we got in the dated Chevy van, we were given sharpies to sign our names and hometowns on the outside of the van and soon piled in for a bumpy ride to the small mining town. The town of Kennecot was specifically built to suit the needs of the mining business. Many of the buildings were the original structures from the early 1900’s, and now used for local businesses, apartments and even a visitor center. In 1900 two men discovered this copper deposit and identified the ore at the limestone-greenstone contact in these Triassic rocks. By ensuing wealthy East Coast families, these men were able to form the Kennecot Copper Corporation, which extracted a total of $200 million by the time of the mine’s closure. The corporation also controlled the entire transportation route, funding the 196-mile Copper River and Northwestern Railway from Kennecot to Cordova. They operated from 1911 to 1938, which is when all the copper had been depleted.
Once we arrived in Kennecot, we went on a guided tour of the small town and copper factory. We were able to go through the original mill, and were able to see all of the original equipment and tools used to extract and process the copper. After the tour we hiked to the base of Root Glacier and were able to do a bit of exploring. The weather was a challenge, changing from sunny, to rainy, to thunderstorms and back to sunny all in one afternoon! We were able to enjoy some free time in the small town and it’s neighboring town of McCarthy for the rest of the afternoon before heading back to camp. It seems that every place we go here, the residents seem to enjoy Alaska’s beauty to the greatest extent. Whether they are living in a small mining town, a less-traveled island or fishing village, Alaska seems to bring something different to everyone. I would say that it has been a place of enjoyment and a great learning experience for us all!

Shannon - The fourth of July was full of a plethora of fun activities. We started the day off with some tasty egg-a-muffins which was the perfect breakfast before our extensive hike on Castner Glacier inside the Central Alaska Range. Castner and the nearby Black Rapids Glacier are significant because of the hazardous surges that have occurred. These surges occur when melt water reaches the base of the glacier and act as a lubricant between the ice/rock interface, allowing the glacier to speed up its velocity to 100 times greater than normal. These events also imply that the glacier is retreating because of increased amounts of melt water supply. A glacial surge occurred on the Black Rapids Glacier in 1936. During this surge the face of the ice mass advanced about one mile each month between December 1936 and March 1937 towards the Delta River and Richardson Highway. Our hike on the Castner glacial moraine was pretty intense, but an awesome experience especially when we were all able to crawl inside an ice cave. Despite our lack of fireworks to celebrate the national holiday, the gang headed out for some fly-fishing to cap off the day. Oh and of course I can’t forget to mention that I spotted the first moose on the trip!!! As we were driving to our campsite on the Delta River, with everyone asleep except for myself (and Garver, who was driving), I saw this massive creature in a pond of the side of the road. It was about time that happened. With all that said, this trip has been out of this world!

Amanda - Unfortunately, we are nearing the end of our travels. Over the past few days, we have visited the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System (TAPS) on several occasions. No matter one’s opinion on the subject, or how “green” they are, one cannot see the pipeline for themselves without appreciating the manpower and intelligence it took to plan and build. It starts in Prudhoe Bay on the North Slope of Alaska, and ends after an 800-mile journey south to Valdez where it can be shipped off to refineries. The construction of the pipeline took three years, cost $8 billion dollars, and employed 21,000 people, killing 31 during accidents. This pipeline is an engineering marvel, not only because of the harsh conditions of the interior of Alaska, but also because it is built on a handful of active faults. Where it crosses the Denali Fault zone, the pipeline sits on Teflon skids, which allow the pipeline to move freely without spilling a drop of oil during an earthquake. Parts of the pipeline are aligned in a zig-zag fashion, which also allows it some leverage to move along the skids during an earthquake. The Denali Fault, intersects the pipeline, and in 2002, there was a 7.9 magnitude earthquake on the Denali Fault. Because of extensive research done by geologists on the recurrence intervals of the faults that the pipeline might intersect, the engineers were able to build a successful pipeline that moved during this massive earthquake and kept the oil contained in its 48-inch diameter pipe. We stood on the intersection of the Denali Fault and the pipeline, and saw the devastation that the earthquake did to the black spruce (Picea mariana) trees in the area. The trees were split in two, some suffered from scarring and deformation, and a few are growing with severe leans because of the violent shaking it experienced. With much debate about a natural gas pipeline being built through Canada or Alaska, it is increasingly important to understand the geology of the potential routes, so that a natural gas pipeline can prove as successful during mass earth movements as the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System. This Alaska experience has been amazing, and I will be sad to leave, but excited to come home and indulge in the everyday pleasures that I’ve missed at our
campsites!