The USGS Alaska Science Center: Volcanoes, Polar Bears, Floods and Minerals

Polar bears, one of the trust species the center studies. U.S. Geological Survey.

The U.S. Geological Survey has studied Alaska's natural features since its first geological expeditions in the 1800s. Its Alaska Science Center, headquartered in Anchorage, brings together experts from many sciences, because Alaska's landscapes and ecosystems are too complex for any one of them. Its mission: to give federal, state and local resource managers and the public objective, timely data and research on Alaska's land, plants and animals, so they can make sound decisions about natural resources, hazards and ecosystems in Alaska and around the Arctic. This is how the center described its work in one of the Survey’s fact sheets.

Hazards

Natural disasters in Alaska cost lives and millions of dollars a year by disrupting commerce and destroying infrastructure. The center's monitoring includes:

• Volcanoes, through the Alaska Volcano Observatory, run jointly by the USGS, the University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute and the Alaska Division of Geological and Geophysical Surveys.
• Floods, through a streamflow network for flood warning and mitigation.
• Emerging wildlife diseases, such as highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza in migratory birds.

Redoubt Volcano. U.S. Geological Survey.

Studying an earthquake’s surface rupture. U.S. Geological Survey.

Minerals

Alaska holds some of the nation's most important biological, water, mineral and energy resources, and it faces earthquakes, eruptions and landslides. Its large intact ecosystems are under pressure both to develop and to preserve them. To show planners where minerals are known or suspected on public lands, and what their environmental effects may be, the center does bedrock and surface geological mapping, geochemical surveys of rock and stream sediment, airborne and ground geophysics, and mineral resource assessments.

Mapping Alaska’s geology. U.S. Geological Survey.

Trust lands and trust species

Interior Department agencies manage more than 200 million acres in Alaska: national parks, national wildlife refuges, Bureau of Land Management lands and federal offshore waters. The center supplies the science for them, with long-term inventory and monitoring, elevation models, land-cover and geological maps, studies of wildlife and habitat, and research on the effects of climate change. It studies the species the department is responsible for: marine mammals such as polar bears, walrus and sea otters; migratory birds; salmon and other fish that migrate from the sea to spawn; species assessed under the Endangered Species Act; wildlife and fish important to Alaska Natives and rural subsistence; and the recovery of sea otters after the Exxon Valdez oil spill.

Walrus. U.S. Geological Survey.

Studying a tundra swan. U.S. Geological Survey.

Water and fisheries

The center monitors streamflow at more than 170 sites, to forecast floods and scour of streambeds, estimate how big and how frequent extreme floods can be, assess water resources, track water quality and ensure fish have enough water in the rivers. Mapping and modeling eroding river channels matters to the many communities built on the banks of unstable rivers. Its fisheries research on public lands and waters covers fish for subsistence, commercial and sport harvest, the conditions that affect them, their habitats in rivers, estuaries and along the coast, and questions of community health, water temperature, sea ice and coastal erosion.

Measuring streamflow. U.S. Geological Survey.

Sockeye salmon. U.S. Geological Survey.

To make all this easier to find, the center built an online map-based Alaska Science Portal covering nearly 150 subjects under USGS study in the state.

Sources

• U.S. Geological Survey, "Alaska Science Center: Providing Timely, Relevant, and Impartial Study of the Landscape, Natural Resources, and Natural Hazards for Alaska and Our Nation," Fact Sheet.