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Northern lights
The seasonal difference between doing fieldwork in Siberia in summery July and a now autumnal September is obvious in low temperatures and bug-free conditions. Plus the added bonus: dark…
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Fieldwork in the Siberian autumn
In our first four days of being here, we’ve sampled about 15 sites, spanning streams and rivers all the way from Duvannyi Yar to the tundra. With summer coming…
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Record breaking in Yakutsk
Being a scientist means you’re always learning and being creative. Being an Arctic scientist means you also must be patient, especially here in the Siberian Arctic. We experienced this…
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Back to the promised land
With three red-eye flights 4 hours in front of me, the GRE 4…
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Living the Dream
As an environmental scientist who is interested in understanding the global carbon cycle and how humans and our activities are changing it I love my job. Everyday I get…
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No Core Experience
When Heather Alexander tried to thank the Zimovs for hosting us at the Northeast Science Station, Sergey Zimov reprimanded her saying “We are all family, we do not say…
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Life as a soil scientist
When most people look at the ground they probably see lifeless brown material that they call dirt. First, dirt is not the same as soils and they should never…
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Threads of an Old Life
After a summer of traveling, it feels unfamiliar to be walking among the familiar….
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Animal and Plant Interactions
I have a fascination with the interaction of animals and plants. Although the relationship may appear to be as simple as…
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Mission Accomplished!
Well as forecasted, the last few days of Polaris were some hectic ones…but I can happily say…MISSION ACCOMPLISHED! As our data collecting was wrapping up, we were all working hard…
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Colleagues and Friends
…I knew Polaris 2013 would be something new, but I had no clue what to expect and I don’t think anyone could have predicted what its impacts were going…
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Fire on the tundra
Fire in tundra ecosystems is a relatively rare, though not unheard of occurrence. Here, fires burn a combination of vegetation and peat in the soil, releasing tons of carbon…
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Canvassing the Terrestrial Landscape
As my advisor stated, “Katie wasn’t supposed to come to the Arctic.” Indeed, he was correct – my former project had me slated to stay stateside. Yet, fortunately, this was…
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Underground
Since the arctic is underlain by a layer of permafrost, soil that remains frozen year-round, water does not penetrate far into the ground from the surface. However, the thawed…
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To each organism, their own environment
Boreal forest surrounds the globe at northern latitudes. In Eastern Siberia the boreal forest is composed primarily of mosses, lichens, grasses, shrubs and larch trees. These vegetation types are…
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