Yukon Coast Expedition 2012

Yukon Coast Expedition´s participants, from the left: Stefanie Weege, Juliane Wolter, Hugues Lantuit, Josefine Lenz, Michael Fritz, George Tanski and Boris Radosavljevic Yesterday, 17th of July 2012, group of eight researchers from the Alfred Wegener Institute in Germany began to sail towards Herschel Island.

Herschel Island, located at 69°34'N and 138°55'W is the northernmost point of the Yukon Territory, approximately 60 km east of the Alaska border. Together with neighboring Mackenzie Delta, the island is being a secondary field site in PAGE21. The territory is part of an ice-push structure formed by the westward advance of a lobe of the Laurentide Ice Sheet during the last glaciation.

The Island is the focus of investigations of the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research since 2006. In co operation with McGill University and the Geological Survey of Canada, the research is conducted by international group of scientists.

During the trip, participants will focus on coastal erosion, paleogeography, thermokarst and soil microbiology.

The expedition will be lead by Dr. Hugues Lantuit, who is a permafrost scientist at the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in Potsdam, Germany. He is the lead of the Helmholtz Society Young Investigator Group on coastal permafrost.

The journey is scheduled until 28th of August. For more than a month, the team will report regularly in the blog ´´ Yukon Coast 2012´´. The research will be available shortly after the expedition ends.

To read more about the project, please access PAGE21 website.