Reconstructing Landscape Evolution of the Alaskan Coastal Plain Using Indigenous Knowledge

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About 20% of the Arctic Coastal Plain is covered by thaw lakes developed overice-rich permafrost. A much larger proportion of this landscape is also scarred bydrained thaw-lake basins, which become sites for the accumulation of organic carbon aspeat deposits. For this interdisciplinary study of thaw lakes and thaw-lakebasins, the Principal Investigators will interview Inupiat Elders from the villages of Barrow and Atqasuk. The objective is to obtain first-hand accounts of lake drainage events, locate these basins, and, using these oral traditions, establish the date of lake drainage occurrence well before the earliest air photographs. This project is intellectually meritorious in that the results will add significantly to our understanding of the basic processes responsible for these important elements of the northern Alaskan landscape. Broader impacts include accessing traditional knowledge of local Elders in Barrow and Atqasuk, who have primary and secondary information on recent lake drainage and flooding events. This project fulfills SGER criteria of having a severe urgency with regard to availability of, or access to data, in that the Elders of the North Slope possess unique ecological and scientific knowledge which is disappearing rapidly.