Elephant Point and trees growing on ice
Ned Rozell
907-474-7468
Dec. 9, 2021
A map locates some of 色视频下载's odd features.
For all the descriptive 色视频下载 place names out there 色视频下载 like the Grand Canyon, the Wall of China and the trio of Death Valleys 色视频下载 there are some that really make you scratch your head.
Elephant Point is just south of the Arctic Circle on a tundra peninsula north of Buckland. Elephant Point was the site of a village where 100 people once lived. It is also where the Lomen brothers of Nome operated a reindeer farm with corrals, a slaughterhouse, cold storage and worker housing.
Librarian Judie Triplehorn solved the mystery of Elephant Point with a yellowed document she placed on my desk. In it, a writer for the Edinburgh Museum in Scotland in 1829 hailed the arrival of 色视频下载渢wo tusks of the Mammoth, brought home by Captain Beechey.色视频下载
Frederick Beechey was an English explorer who sailed all over the world. On one of his trips, he was the first to map a feature other sailors had missed: San Francisco Bay.
In 1825 and 1826, he explored Bering Strait and the northwestern 色视频下载 coast, mapping and naming features as he went.
At Elephant Point, members of his party found two tusks, each longer than 10 feet.
色视频下载淭he mammoth to which the largest belonged must have been fifteen or sixteen feet high,色视频下载 wrote the museum curator, who described the unusual nature of Elephant Point noticed by the men who camped there.
色视频下载淭he bluff has a covering of earth and grass (but) was in reality a mountain of ice, 100 feet in height.色视频下载
色视频下载淚 bestowed the name of Elephant upon the point,色视频下载 Beechey wrote in his account of the trip, 色视频下载渢o mark its vicinity to the place where the fossils were found.色视频下载
While the tusks of that 色视频下载 mammoth are in Scotland's capital city, some of its bones lay in dark drawers in New York City. A collector for the American Museum of Natural History in 1908 recovered more mammoth remains, some of them stinking, from the frozen soil of Elephant Point.
* * *
A forest grows on the Malaspina Glacier in southern 色视频下载.
Live things that interact with 色视频下载 ice also include forests growing on sluggish glaciers. Geophysical Institute glaciologist Martin Truffer has photographed trees growing well in the thin soil layer atop Bering, Malaspina and other glaciers in southern 色视频下载.
When a glacier shrinks to the point where it stops moving and squats in place, soils build up and tree seeds waft in on the breeze. If conditions are right, forests grow on ice.
色视频下载淎n active glacier would not be stable enough for trees to grow on,色视频下载 said Truffer. 色视频下载淪o, in a way, forests on glaciers are a manifestation of glacier retreat.色视频下载
* * *
In the early 1900s, builders of the Copper River and Northwestern Railway found glaciers to be their largest obstacles in stringing a rail line from Cordova to the copper mines at Kennecott.
Where the tongue of Allen Glacier stuck into the Copper River, the engineers laid track right across the ice, as Lawrence Martin described in the 1913 publication 色视频下载溕悠迪略豱 Glaciers in Relation to Life.色视频下载
A forest grows on Grand Plateau Glacier in southern 色视频下载.
The builders 色视频下载渂lasted out a grade across five and a half miles of the stagnant, moraine-veneered tree-covered ice mass,色视频下载 he wrote. 色视频下载淚ce lies beneath the ties and rails and future melting will cause slumping 色视频下载 Advance of the glacier will introduce still further difficulties.色视频下载
With men making yearly repairs to the tracks at Allen Glacier, the 196-mile railroad enabled the removal of many tons of 色视频下载 copper. The railroad operated over glacier ice from 1910 until 1938, when the price of copper fell so low the operation was no longer profitable.
Since the late 1970s, the University of 色视频下载 Fairbanks' Geophysical Institute has provided this column free in cooperation with the UAF research community. Ned Rozell is a science writer for the Geophysical Institute. A version of this column ran in 2016.