Palaeothaw Blog

PALAEOTHAW: FIVE WEEKS IN THE CANADIAN NORTH

In August and September this year we spent 5 weeks in northern Canada as part of the PALAEOTHAW project. During this time, the project team travelled from Tuktoyaktuk on the Arctic coast to Teslin in southern Yukon, putting over 3500km on our rental truck. The purpose of the trip was to collect modern environmental samples (soils, plants, and water) from permafrost landscapes, which will help us investigate the effect that permafrost thaw is having on the biogeochemical sulfur cycle. During the trip, we also attended the North Yukon Permafrost conference in Dawson City, spent time in the Government of Yukon palaeontological collections in Whitehorse, and got to experience the hospitality and knowledge of the First Nations communities who welcomed us into their territories.

Over the coming weeks, the project team will be writing in more detail about everything we did on the field season, the science that underpins our work, and what we hope that the PALAEOTHAW project will achieve. But for now, We’ll simply leave you with some photos that capture the types of amazing landscapes that we were working in.