• Dallas and Kate in the Denmark Strait

    Posted by Andy Bunn on August 22, 2011

    I just got a nice note from 2010 Polaris student Kate Lewis who was writing from Reykjavik harbor. Kate graduated from WWU and has been working at the…


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  • Time Passing

    Posted by Dallas Murphy on July 29, 2011

    It’s a beautiful morning in Siberia after a couple of days of rain, the sky cobalt blue, bright sun glinting on the distant flood plain lakes and sharpening the…


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  • To the North

    Posted by Dallas Murphy on July 25, 2011

    “Okay, the tundra trip is on for tomorrow,” said Max, “with the usual ifs and provisos.  But we can’t take everyone in the three boats.  The students who were…


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  • What Scientists Do

    Posted by Dallas Murphy on July 22, 2011

    We are stardust, Million-year-old carbon. We are golden, but caught in the devil’s bargain, And we’ve got to get ourselves back to the Garden. “Woodstock” Joni Mitchell   One of our PIs Jorien Vonk finished…


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  • Just a Matter of Time

    Posted by Dallas Murphy on July 20, 2011

    The balance of evidence suggests a discernable human influence on global climate. Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change (IPCC), Second Assessment Report, 1995. There is new and stronger evidence that…


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  • Duvannyi Yar, Part Two

    Posted by Dallas Murphy on July 15, 2011

    We landed on the riverbank near the mouth of a shallow stream and stepped gingerly ashore onto soft, ancient mud.  Dissolved organic carbon samples collected last year by Polaris…


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  • Duvannyi Yar, Part One

    Posted by Dallas Murphy on July 15, 2011

    “Let’s gather, everyone, on the front of the barge for a safety talk,” Max called. The morning was cool, still, and buggy after a cold, windy night, the Kolyma glassy…


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  • Bugs, Aii-ee!

    Posted by Dallas Murphy on July 10, 2011

    Slapping, clapping, waving, scratching—these are common, if not constant signals of life in Siberia. “Don’t scratch the bites,” someone says, “They’ll go away.”  Sure. [caption id=”attachment_3034″ align=”alignleft” width=”530″ caption=”Mosquitoes swarmed around…


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  • The Carbon Bomb

    Posted by Dallas Murphy on July 8, 2011

    I’m trying to imagine it as I look out over this wet, verdant landscape, dark-green stands of larch forest punctuated by lighter green bogs and blue lakes glinting in…


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  • We Arrive, Finally

    Posted by Dallas Murphy on July 6, 2011

    We can see through crystalline skies its unique beauty and something of its expanse from 8,000 feet—a flat, bright-green flood plain pocked from horizon to horizon with black-water lakes…


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  • Welcome to the Polaris Project

    Posted by Dallas Murphy on June 27, 2011

    “I didn’t think anyone went to Siberia willingly,” a friend replied when I told him I was going there with the Polaris Project.  Gulags are the first images evoked…


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