The PAGE21 project has now been officially closed.
The four years of research came to an end on October 31 2015, leaving only...
PAGE21 project was featured in a plenary session "Permafrost in the 21st century" at the 2015 Arctic Circle conference in Reykjavik,...Blog Tundra Stories: Home sweet home
Our hope for the flight to Yakutsk on Friday disappeared due to the weather conditions; so we had to stay in Tiksi for the weekend. That was not easy for those of us who planned to be in civilization by that time : ). Desperate even moved our team to go to the cinema and to watch Scary Movie 5 in Russian : ).Sunday evening a strong fog came to Tiksi and some experienced people predicted us to stay there another two weeks. But fortunately, the weather was excellent on Monday and we could fly to Yakutsk directly, by the way, because the airport in Tiksi was already opened. In 2.5 hours we got in summer : ).
In Yakutsk we had to stay two days more. Traditionally, we had an excursion to the Permafrost Institute. First time in my life I was inside the permafrost, when we went downstairs to the underground part of Institute. Afterwards, we had a very nice dinner with traditional frozen raw fish salad and not so traditional, but tasty, Czech beer. Next day we were picked up by our colleague Misha Grigoriev, and drove to the Lena River, to watch the last ice break up.
Thursday morning we started our long-awaited flight to Moscow. Expedition was over, and it was time to say goodbye. I stayed in Moscow another 3 days and others took the plane to Berlin few hours later.
Some of us took many samples: snow for the isotopic analysis and frozen ground cores. They are too many to take them just in luggage, so they will arrive later. Most of them will be proceeded at AWI and Hamburg Uni. This time my tasks didn't assume any sampling, so I can't tell you more precisely about processing : ).
It is time to say goodbye to the blog, we will see us in summer!
And at last I just want to say to everybody that I really like all of you, even though it was hard to see sometimes : ). And thanks for the great time!
Poka!
Blog Tundra Stories: End of the trip
It is time to say goodbye to Samoylovskiy, though some of us will come back already this summer.Our goals were more or less completed; at least my own ones : ). Some people had to work in the laboratory during the last days, but others just used the possibility to have few calm days to walk around the island or just to sleep : ). We also made the real banya, at the old station, that was so good!
Today morning we started to Tiksi with vezdekhod. The trip was successful and we had a small party at the flat, and again there was pasta a la Tiksi! Sansara completed the circle : ).
Hopefully, tomorrow we will fly to Yakutsk, but it's still unclear due to the weather conditions. The plane from Yakutsk has already delayed for 3 days.
Blog Tundra Stories: Just in time
Dear readers, at last it's time to tell you about my own work, the very important part of my PhD project.As you know from my first stories, my plan was to install ultrasonic sensors as well as tubes for measuring surface subsidence.
We were preparing everything during a few days, and then started our trip to Kurungnakh. We had a skidoo and sledges, GPS navigator and experienced driver.
The first trip was like usual first try, and we lost one drill, because it got stuck in the frozen ground and it was not possible to take it back. It happens sometimes, so we left it there, hoping to come back later.
All in all, at that day we installed only 2 tubes for manual measurements. Then we drove back home, me - completely frozen after skidoo trip against the wind : ).
During the week we were driving to Kurungnakh three times more. The spring came very suddenly, and snow was nearly completely away in two or three days. Our snowmobiles turned into tundramobiles, and guys, who were sitting in sledges, experienced all pleasures of racing through the hummocky lands.Thanks to all guys, but especially to Niko, all stations were installed, as it was planned. That was just in time, because right after our last trip, the river ice was flooded, tundra was totally free of snow and we couldn't drive with skidoo anymore.
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Blog Tundra Stories: People of the Tundra
Today I will tell you about some people from the station who helped us a lot during our work. I am sure, lives of all of them are worth to be told as a separate story, but I'll try to be short, not to exhaust you : ).First of all, Sergey Ivanovich or Seryoga. He came to these places many years ago, and since that time he is in love with tundra and is not able to leave it for a long time. He drove us to the field with a skidoo, as the most experienced person in tundra. He is like a father of everyone here; he is eager to help or at least to give an advice, and he cares even about my cold hands – he forced me to take on his warm mittens.
Petya is the inspector from Lena Delta Reserve. He looks a little bit younger than he is, and it's hard to believe that he has already got two children. He is also very interested in our activity and helps us always immediately.
Sever (North), is the dog of another inspector, but temporary he lives at Petya. He is full of energy, especially, when we drive with skidoo, he is running all the time along. We all can't just pass by if we see him; it's unavoidable to pet him : ).
Regina is a cook, and we get not only warm meal three times a day, but always some tasty pastry in between.Vitya, as he said, 'kubanskiy kazachok', came from the south of Russia, from Krasnodar. Besides his duties, he bakes home bread and grows radish and green herbs in the boxes with soil.
They all live here far from their families; some of them haven't been at home about one year.
Meanwhile, we celebrated 1th May; we made shashlyk outside the station, with the beautiful sunset view. We also had Paskha (orthodox Easter), and Tonya and me boiled eggs with the onion skin to get them colorful : ).
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Blog Tundra Stories: The Polar Day
During the last week polar day finally came to stay till the autumn. The feeling is unusual, even though I spend few summers in St Petersburg. Your brain just can't realize that it's time to sleep, because it's so bright outside. But then it costs you bad waking up : ) (at least, for me, personally).Meantime, our colleague Tonya (from Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute) came to the station to join our team. She is hydro-chemist and she is planning to take water samples from the lakes and Lena channels. She is partly using the new station's equipment to analyze the content of major and trace chemical elements and nutrients in the water. It is important for the long term monitoring of Lena Delta, and especially, in winter period.
So, once I joined Tonya and Katya in water sampling. We took skidoo (next time I will tell you about our drivers) and went to the nearest lake, not so far from station.
Making an ice-hole in the 2.5m thick ice is not so easy task, especially if you need not just a narrow ice-hole, but wide enough for the 50 liters bucket (Katya needs this for the plankton analysis). So, there are set of different tools, from a wooden thick pole to a motor drill : ).
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