Research Objectives

Examine and compare the relationships of snow and plant cover, as well as soil temperature and parent material, to active layer thickness, and the size and spacing of frost boils across a 7° C mean-July-temperature gradient in northern Alaska.

Examine the consequence of frost boils to soil properties, plant communities, species diversity, leaf area index, and above-ground biomass.

Test a new Differential Frost Heave model to ascertain whether it can relate measurable dynamic periglacial landform characteristics to ecological parameters.

Determine the relationship of frost boil activity to active layer and permafrost temperatures, moisture, and unfrozen water dynamics.

Determine if SAR-based interferometry techniques can be used to detect differences in frost-heave across a phytogeographic boundary separating acidic shrubby vegetation with low amounts of cryoturbation, from nonacidic graminoid-dominated systems with high amounts of cryoturbation.