woolly mammoth bones
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woolly mammoth bones
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About this listen
In episode four we learn about carbon stored within woolly mammoth bones and ancient plants, long held within the walls of the the Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory's permafrost tunnel located near Fairbanks, Alaska.
Forty thousand years ago permafrost trapped microbes, rock, and sediment when water froze around it all. The ground ice also captured ancient plants and mammal bones, making carbon stores visually apparent as permafrost oxidizes or thaws. These processes also have an odor.
topics and purpose: What all is in permafrost and emerges as it thaws?
terms defined: the Pleistocene Ice Age, organic matter
notes: Learn more about the Army Corps of Engineers' Permafrost Tunnel Research Facility in Fox, Alaska here. A previous version of this episode suggested that the tunnel was excavated to act as a protective underground enclave in the event of foreign occupation during the Cold War; this has been revised for accuracy. It was actually excavated in the 1960s as an experiment to test whether the tunnel could act as a bunker for military weapons systems.