17 August, 1997

August 17, 1997

The day for us today started with breakfast at Pepe's Mexican Restaurant. >From there Jeremy and I had to change rooms and that meant that we packed up again. Then we went out into the ARCSS Grid at Barrow and split into four groups with different jobs. Jeremy, Anna, and I probed a 1 x 1 km grid today which means I walked 4.8 km not counting the long walk in. After probing the site we set up an experiment that we tried out at Toolik but we set out three points rather than two. Site a consists of probes at 0, 5, 10, and 15 cm. Site b has probes at 0, 5, and 10 cm and will be covered with sandwich wrap. Site c will be the same as b except the cover will be just below the surface so that we might be able to see if the plastic and sun light combine to cause any effects seen in the first experimental site.

The tundra here is different than Prudhoe Bay and Toolik. At Toolik sites we had a tussock tundra that was wet and rough walking because of all the little grass mounds scattered about every 1 ft or so with moss that was lower than the tussocks. Walking on that stuff meant that you were either trying to step between the tussocks or on top of them. The tussocks generally did not support our weight and they would tip over as you step on them. Around Dead Horse the tundra did not have tussocks to deal with and the walking was generally easier but there was standing water in lakes and ponds that we had to walk around, low center polygons, and high center polygons. The differing terrain was easier to walk over than tussock tundra. Today I walked over a different kind of surface. This one had water soaked moss which my boot would sink in about 8 cm and stick just enough to make walking hard work. This area is also much colder than any area we have worked in. Todays high will be

in the mid 30's with scattered clouds, showers and occasional fog along the coast.