Scientists

Kenji Yoshikawa, Research Associate Professor at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, explains the importance of studying permafrost, how it affects each of us, and what we can learn from studying permafrost. His talk begins by showing scientific trips he has taken all over the world in his study of permafrost. He discusses the importance of permafrost and how we can learn more about life in the universe; permafrost and its affect on building in Alaska; the importance of permafrost and ecology; and finally, greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere. His lecture ends with a presentation on his current research in Alaska where he is installing instruments near village schools to measure permafrost temperatures. The lecture is followed by questions from students and teachers in the Bering Strait School District.

Kenji Yoshikawa, Research Associate Professor at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, plays the lead role in this exerpt from his "Tunnel Man" video (available in its entirety on YouTube). This specific animation illustrates how ice wedges form.

Kenji Yoshikawa, Research Associate Professor at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, is shown during a tour of the Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory's Permafrost Tunnel in Fox, Alaska. This specific clip shows Yoshikawa pointing out ice wedges from underground.

Excavated in perennially frozen silt and gravel adjacent to an area dredged during early placer gold mining, the 360-foot-long tunnel was constructed in several stages during the 1960s. CRREL engineers originally used the tunnel to evaluate methods for underground excavation in frozen soil. The main drift was bored with an Alkirk continuous-cycle miner modified to increase its effectiveness in permafrost.

Today this underground facility, which includes several work chambers, is an active underground laboratory that is available for a variety of research programs. To preserve the permafrost, the tunnel is chilled in the winter by natural convection, with cold air passing in through the entrance and out through a ventilation shaft at the rear of the tunnel. A refrigeration system cools the tunnel portal area in summer to compensate for seasonal warming.

For a virutal tour and more information about the Permafrost Tunnel, please visit the CRREL Permafrost Tunnel homepage.

Kenji Yoshikawa, Research Associate Professor at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, toured northwestern rural Alaska in early 2008 on a snow machine to dig boreholes in the frozen tundra. With the support of local schools, these borehole sites have become permafrost observatories. This video is a quick overview of the trip activities.