February 24 2015— Slow landslides in permafrost slide downhill on mountain slopes in the Brooks Range of Alaska. These massive frozen debris lobes are geohazards. They pose a potential threat to the Dalton Highway, Alaska’s lone road to the North Slope. There are 23 identified frozen debris lobes situated less than one mile uphill from […]
As another ecological disaster struck the simulated Arctic spread across our table top, every player groaned. I’d retained one sea ice card in reserve so I only had to lose one from my marine ecosystem; I tried to jostle the species that had been supported by the lost ice into other positions along still thriving […]
“What does this look like?” “Zombies!” one of the scientists suggested. “Right,” the cinematographer agreed. He reinforced the idea of shifting the frame to give the person on camera space for their gaze to travel – ‘Lookroom’. He’d noted before that when there’s an empty space looming behind a person’s back it creates tension. Perhaps […]
We’ve joined scientists atop a frozen debris lobe, a slow-moving landslide in permafrost. They say we’re ‘on the back of the beast’. In the heavy rain and among fog-shrouded mountains, the scientists are making these uphill treks to record how temperature, water pressure, and local geological properties determine the slope movement of the massive lobes. […]
Less than one mile upslope from Alaska’s Dalton Highway, there are 23 frozen debris lobes looming. Frozen debris lobes (FDLs) are something like a cross between a landslide and a glacier. They’re silty sand and gravel, stones, icy frozen soil as well as liquid water kept from freezing by the intense pressure of the slow-motion push downhill. […]