Field Notes
During, before, and after the field course, Polaris students and faculty share their thoughts through journal entries.
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Arctic inspiration
Between stints of tromping through the undergrowth trailing one end of a 30 meter tape measure to help Ludda measure the slope of her hill, I was able to just sit down and marvel at the larch forest, the mountains in the distance and the tiny gurgling stream.
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Unnamed Territory
The syringes of water I collect end up in a living room converted to lab, complete with giant batteries resting on an upright piano and portraits watching over the Victorianesque-furniture and gas chromatograph.
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Just a Matter of Time
“Four times more carbon is contained in permafrost,” Max said this morning, “than in the entire biomass in the rest of the world.”
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Summers can also be cold
It was a normal day, but as soon as breakfast was finished, the first raindrops started to fall.
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Collect, Process, Analyze, Repeat
We are analyzing data and religiously gluing, sanding, counting, and measuring tree rings to be assessed for relationships between tree growth rates over time as well as productivity.
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Counting Carbon
Our goal is to figure out how much carbon is stored above and below ground in this area.
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Duvannyi Yar, Part Two
Dissolved organic carbon samples collected last year by Polaris Project scientists from here at the bottom of the cliff were radiocarbon dated at 30,000 years old. We immediately began finding the bones of big animals that died sometime around then.
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Duvannyi Yar, Part One
“Don’t go wandering off by yourself,” Max warned. “Stay with your group.” There are a lot of ways to get hurt at Duvannyi Yar.
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A Norwegian in Siberia
The water was full of organic material and I couldn’t see my own hand when I held it approximately 0.5 meters below the surface.
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A Life Changing Experience
Everything started in a study session of my friend’s apartment in Guaynabo, Puerto Rico.
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The First Puerto Ricans in Cherskiy
Have you ever felt that you are probably the first from your country to reach a place?
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Cherskiy through the lens
Cherskiy, the Northeast Science Station, and the barge through the lens of Becky Tachihara.
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Science and swimming and bugs, oh my!
Every day after breakfast, group disperses to various field locations and labs where they will work on their projects. We have people studying lakes, streams, trees, soil and everything in between, and I have been trying to follow a different group to a different place every day so I can
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Science playground
This place, with its foundation of Pleistocene (the time period before the last ice age, around 40,000 years ago) permafrost, is a science playground.
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Bushwhacking for science
Stumbling my way through waist high thickets that give in to pits carved out by the stream, this is by far the most difficult hiking that I have ever done…
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