July 9, 2008 (We were unable to post this due to disabled internet connection in Cherskiy)

Waking up fairly early to a delicious breakfast in our hotel (thank you Katey and others), we began our day with a quick trip to a local internet cafe to check our emails and to see if we could connect with the outside world. It was nice to walk around downtown Yakutsk, taking in many of the local squares and city sites, and we were able to see more of the culture and infrastructure of this city. Some of us had the opportunity to swim in the Lena River, Russia’s longest and second largest by volume. The warm weather and clear day along with an expansive beach and the cool waters was a great experience and something you don’t think of experiencing in Siberia.  Other students and PI’s had the opportunity to explore the surrounding floodplain and older parts of the city. It’s very dusty, concrete, and quite dry but definitely full of history and culture.

In the afternoon, the PI’s gave a quick introduction to the Cherskiy region. We learned about yedoma – which comprises the majority of permafrost in the Cherskiy area although its origin is unknown (either aeolian or fluvial) and it contains ~2% organic carbon and between 50-90% ice. One of the PI’s, Karen Frey, brought several large scale maps of the area to give us an idea of the local and regional topography and also provided some remote sensing, satellite, and land cover data.  Kate and Anya worked with Karen, Bill, and John on some GIS data Karen had downloaded to help identify different features from some satellite imagery and delineate different soil areas and watersheds.  Sudeep and Andy helped Matt and Boyd sift through and analyze phytoplankton from previous water column data to extract chlorophyll values from different lakes in the Cherskiy area. Katie Abbott and Tyler collaborated with Katey Walter, looking at physical properties of lakes in the Cherskiy area, including nitrogen and phosphorus data Katey had previously collected from lakes we will soon visit!!!!!  When in Cherskiy, they will generate graphs and analyze the results.

Still somewhat confused on which time zone we were in, which one we were going to, and just exactly what was going on in general, we passed out around 9:15. It was still very light out from our hotel-like structure. More than anything, we were desperately excited to reach our final destination the following afternoon.

-Boyd Zapatka, Student, Clark University

-Tyler Llewellyn, Student, W. Washington University