Permafrost outreach 2009

After presentation at the school, we visit 13th century park. This park contain 5 different categories of ger and disply remaked 800 years ago! as well as food.

We have a chance to talk Mongolian high school today. all of the students are well respect and understanding in English. I heard recent young generation have been studied more in English than the Russian as second language. They have a very interesting in permafrost and Mongolian environmental science. I cannot forget thier beautiful and sharp eyes.

Ulaanbaatar had permafrost 50 years ago by the city construction reports. however, we cannot find evidence today.
We select "Nalayh" city for this project. Nalayh is about 35km east of Ulaanbartar and originally coal mining town. Coal mining was closed late 80s but well known geological condition. Permafrost is present north facing slope and valley bottom. Active layer thickness is 3.5 to 5m deep. It is unuseal for Alaska but common in here!
We vsit high school for setting up presentation schedule and visiting several Sharkhuu's borehole sites. School is located middle of the town and no play ground. We cannot find any monitoring site in school yard. We decide to use one of the excisting boreholes.

After 5 hours flight from Tokyo, Mongolian Airline (MIAT) jet arrived Ulaanbaatar.
Ulaanbaatar is capital of Mongolia and over 40% of Mongolian live in this city. City just reached 1 million people and this baby recieved appartment from city as award.
Sharkhuu (Mongolian Academy of Science) was waiting our landing at airport. He has been involved with the borehole network in Mongolia. He will lead in the field campaign and efforts to interact with the Mongolian communities. He is our host at Mongolia and let us to stay his appartmernt.

Kenji Yoshikawa will leave for Mongolia tomorrow. At first, Air plane go to Seattle, and Tokyo. When overnight stay in Tokyo Narita airport, I will fly for Ulaanbator on Saturday. Sharkhuu is the main organizer of this trip. Kenji and Sharkhuu plan to install and visit 3 schools near Ulaanbator. Sharkhuu Natsagdorj, Mongolian Academy of Science; he has been involved with the borehole network in Mongol. He will lead in the field campaign and efforts to interact with the Mongolian communities. Stay tune! I will report Mongolian school and students.

It was last working day in Canada today. We had to drive a little bit more...
At first, we drove about 60km to Ross River in the morning. Ross River is native community almost head water for Yukon River watershed. Village is located on the permafrost but about 6m of thawed gravel layer making us to confused the presence of permafrost. We saw big & tall white spruce with dry forest floor sounding the village. This is typical sign of the absent of the permafrost. However, school had been serious permafrost degradation problems. This beautiful Ross River School builds 5 years ago, but already many cracks in the building and still moving!
Brian (Science teacher) shows us quick tour in the building and we had a great time with local students. EBA have a plan to drill at the school next month. They agree to use this drill hole for our outreach program! So we do not plan to drill here in Ross River today.

After the Ross River School GPR demonstration, we drove back to Faro. Many stormy clouds developed around road. We were little worry about field demonstration in Faro this afternoon. In the sky, also we saw abnormal number of crane flying! What a interesting place here!
We made it just 30 minute before presentation for Faro school. This school had also been permafrost problems. We had a fun time with extraordinary students. They were so good manner and knowledge about permafrost! After the talking, we all went out to the drill site. We demonstrated GPR and drilling. Many students were first time to touch permafrost. We believe they enjoy it. At the end of field demonstration, we set datalogger and back to school. Then we drove back to Whitehorse this evening with excellent feeling because of meeting with outstanding Faro’s students and great success of this program.

We drive another 500-600 km to go Faro today. Faro is originally mining town and house and road is beautifully constructed. We talk to Garry (principal) and Bruce (science teacher) about class schedule and drill site. School building and play ground had quite bit permafrost problems. One of the baseball field need fill in gravel every year that why grass could not growing. When we arrived Faro, it was rain. But it looks getting better. We decide to drill upper part of small valley next of the school. We are successfully installed Faro permafrost monitoring site around 7pm. We back to B&B to make temperature sensors and start datalogger. After the dinner, sensors are in the hole and start recording. The sky is just getting orange and beautiful sunset with some remaining cloud.

We start drill in front of school using minuteman drill system. The reason of using this system is gravel layer. Mike told us detail school property ground conditions since 1920s and Panya’s reports, we knew the drill site had 30-100cm of gravel layer, up to 3.5m of frozen silt and gravel deeper than 3.5m. The hand operated drill system cannot go through upper gravel layer. Once we start Minuteman, we can break through frozen gravel layer and up to 2.5m works great! Then we got problem about water system. The way of break frozen gravel layer need air compressor or pressured water to blow out cutting chips. We use water system for this and drill bit filled dart at the water discharge holes at 2.5m. We just keep drill at 3m deep and to install casing. Upper gravel collapse in the hole and never let PVC pipe go through even half inch PVC! We try auger or core barrel to cleaning gravel layer but all failed!
We will back here again with another (hydrolic) drill system!

We drove to Dawson about 6 hours drive from Whitehorse. Dawson had gold rush in 1898 since then the school was located same position, but the building was rebuild several times. Current school building was build early 1980s. This is one of the most beautiful building we saw. Panya brought many past reports for Dawson city. We check existence of the several boreholes in the reports. These are great materials for school students checking permafrost temperature decadal changing. Most of the borehole/thermistors are disconnected by the remodeling/ redesign. Very few boreholes are seems survive since 1970s. We also plan to establish permafrost observation site in front of school.
We had presentation next day. After presentation, Panya demonstrate stereo pair air photograph and datalogger. Then all students went out baseball field to test ground peneteratating radar.

In the very discontinuous permafrost zone near Whitehorse, we finally found permafrost near Golden Horn school! Karen McKenna (a local Whitehorse permafrost/vegetation specialist) helped us greatly in finding a small patch of permafrost near Cowley Creek! We drilled a 5 m borehole, and found a nice 30 cm thick massive ice layer at about 3 m depth. Thank you Karen!!
We do not know the complete thermal state of this permafrost site yet, but the permafrost is estimated to be about 10 m thick.

We are now in Whitehorse and have drilled several sites at Golden Horn school. Unfortunately, we had no luck finding permafrost there. Whitehorse is located near the southern boundary of permafrost, so it is difficult to find permanently frozen ground here. Seasonally frozen ground in the upper 70 cm of the ground is common, but so far we have had no luck finding permanently frozen ground below the seasonal frost layer.
The school students visited the drill site to see the equipment we use for drilling and geophysical investigations (GPR: Ground Penetrating Radar). After the field demonstration, we went back to classroom to show a permafrost slide show. The students were great and were very interested, and we had a great time with the Golden Horn students and teachers. Unfortunately, we still haven't found permafrost for them to monitor, but we are not giving up yet...!

Panya (Yukon Geological Survey) and Kenji gave presentation first thing in the morning at Beaver Creek School. Then we intall temperature sensors at borehole site.
After the installtion, we move to Destruction Bay. Destruction Bay School is very small and four students are studying there. We gave presentation and demonstrate GPR (Ground Penetrating Radar).

Kenji arrived at Beaver Creek in afternoon. This area is really interesting about climatic conditions. One of the coldest spot of the North America is just 20 mile from here. Permafrost is feeling much colder than Fairbanks even lower latitude. At first, I meet Panya (Geological Survey of Yukon), we discuss about drill site. Erin (principal) is very helpful for getting permission. Kazu (White River First Nations) also many support for this program to success. At the end up our discussion for drill site, Connie (White River First Nations) helps for searching good spot for our drill site. At the middle of excursion Kazu join to us to looking for the site. I deeply appreciate so many people kind us and help us a lot!
At the end of discussion, we drill 8km a way from town. This is a little bit far from town but scientifically very ideal site to monitor permafrost. We hit big massive ice layer between 3.5-4.2m. It must be buried ice wedges.