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  • November

    Cave entrance on Baker Island overlooking mountains and ocean

    ERDC researchers discovering hidden caves in Alaska

    The U.S. Army Engineer Research Development Center's (ERDC) Construction Engineering Research Laboratory (CERL) is leading a study alongside the University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) and the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) to document cave biodiversity in the TNF and explore how these unique subterranean communities are connected using molecular genetic tools.

  • August

    The team carried microphones and recording equipment across fields covered in four feet of snow to conduct experiments and collect data for developing new methods for detecting, localizing and identifying aerial drones. The effort was completed in order to determine the direction of sound and the way it travels through the atmosphere as well as the way sound interacts with terrain in hopes of finding new methods for extracting information from sound signals.

    Detecting sound in the Arctic

    The U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center’s Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory’s (CRREL) signature physics branch is obsessed with sound -- or more specifically, the way it travels through the atmosphere and interacts with terrain – and methods for extracting information from sound signals.
  • Two researchers with the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center’s Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory assemble a newly engineered automated terrestrial laser scanning system (A-TLS) at Husky Drop Zone on Eielson Air Force Base, Alaska. The A-TLS is installed on a 12-foot-tall tower affixed with multiple lidar laser scanners, meteorological sensors and solar panels.

    CRREL researchers test new modular LiDAR tower, sensors

    The U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center’s Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory’s (CRREL) Remote Sensing Geographic Information System Center of Expertise (RSGIS CX) is testing a newly engineered automated terrestrial laser scanning system (A-TLS) in Alaska.

  • May

    A recently opened thermokarst pit caused by the melting of ground ice in a region underlain by permafrost shows where upwelling shallow ground water is flowing through another thermokarst feature. Note a moose carcass in the base of the thaw feature. It is not clear how this moose died but it was a healthy young moose that not predated. The working hypothesis is it got stuck in deep snow or it broke a leg on the uneven fallen trees below.

    ERDC researchers investigate how climate change impacts permafrost

    Permafrost is found beneath nearly 85 percent of Alaska. While it is typically very strong, as the ice in the permafrost begins to warm, it weakens, and foundations built upon it may begin to fail. CRREL researchers at the Permafrost Tunnel Research Facility are working to address challenges with building on permafrost.

  • April

    Ryan James, a digging contractor, breaks through into the back of the gravel room for the first time from the new back crosscut in the Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory's Permafrost Tunnel Research Facility in Fox, Alaska. The excavation was part of the phase four expansion of the permafrost tunnel, which added a new 300-foot tunnel and improved 200 feet of the pre-existing tunnel.

    Discovering the Mural in Permafrost

    In the forests of Fox, Alaska, carved into a frozen hillside is a unique manmade 350-meter long research tunnel. Situated on a 16-acre parcel near the confluence of Goldstream and Glenn Creeks, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Research and Development Center’s Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory’s Permafrost Tunnel Research Facility was excavated deep into a large block of discontinuous permafrost that has been going through several recent periods of expansion. The expansion project began back in 2011, taking advantage of the digging seasons when the ground is at its coldest, with an overall project goal of expanding the tunnel facility to better support ongoing and growing research and engineering needs. The most recent expansion effort, this year, has added 300-feet of new tunnel, improved 200 feet of the existing tunnel and added links between the old and new tunnel sections at several locations, to include at an interface between subsurface bedrock and overlying gravels.

  • October

    Predicting the Arctic sea ice, piece by piece

    Predicting the Arctic sea ice, piece by piece

    HANOVER, N.H. (Oct. 23, 2107) - Viewed from an airplane or a ship’s deck, Arctic sea ice can appear