Introducing “Nanuq,” the mini tyrannosaurus of Alaska's North Slope By Ned Rozell [fusion_dropcap]S[/fusion_dropcap]eventy million years ago, the baddest predator on top of the world was a pygmy tyrannosaur about half the size of Tyrannosaurus rex. The creature became known to the world in mid-March 2014, when Texas-based dinosaur hunters Tony Fiorillo and Ron Tykoski unveiled [...]
Alaska's Augustine Volcano Has An Amazing Legacy By Ned Rozell [fusion_dropcap]A[/fusion_dropcap]ugustine Volcano sits alone, a 4,000-foot pyramid on its own island in Cook Inlet. Like many volcanoes, it has a tendency to become top heavy. When gravity acts on Augustine's oversteepened dome, rockslides spill into the ocean. A scientist recently found new evidence for an [...]
Evidence Of What Killed St. Paul Island Wooly Mammoths By Ned Rozell [fusion_dropcap]U[/fusion_dropcap]sing the tiniest of clues, scientists have determined what probably killed the woolly mammoths of St. Paul Island — thirst. “It looks like climate did them in,” said Matthew Wooller, the UAF scientist who in 2013 went to St. Paul as part of [...]
Alaska Bears Harass Unmanned Science Instruments By Ned Rozell [fusion_dropcap]I[/fusion_dropcap]nterior Alaska is a hungry place — lots of boreal forest and swampy wetlands with big, flat rivers winding through. Wildlife sightings, especially of big mammals, are rare. But a recent video posted by a seismologist makes the Tanana River flats look like the Serengeti. A [...]
Cos Jacket - A Ghost Town on the Tanana River By Ned Rozell [fusion_dropcap]C[/fusion_dropcap]OS JACKET — On a canoe trip down the lower Tanana River, we've scrambled up a sandy bank to explore a place that is less populated now than it was a century ago. No one, in fact, lives at Cos Jacket anymore. [...]
Sheefish a shiny surprise on the Zitziana river By Ned Rozell [fusion_dropcap]Z[/fusion_dropcap]ITZIANA RIVER — Fishing at the spot where this long, squiggly stream mixes with a floury channel of the Tanana River, Alison Beamer feels a thump. Line squeals from her spinning reel as a creature as long as her arm flashes beneath the surface. [...]
Moose not easy to see on big Alaska river By Ned Rozell [fusion_dropcap]L[/fusion_dropcap]OWER TANANA RIVER — On a day like this 121 years ago, a hungry U.S. Army explorer passed here at the mouth of Fish Creek, where clear water collides with the cloudy Tanana. Henry Allen did not stop to fish. He had food, [...]
Fire breaks down and builds up Alaska boreal forest By Ned Rozell I once wrote about how fire had ravaged more than 10 percent of Interior Alaska during two smoky summers. A wildlife biologist called me out for choosing an inadequate verb. Tom Paragi chooses words that are more positive when he looks at a [...]
Yukon River breaking up smoothly this year By Ned Rozell: [fusion_dropcap]C[/fusion_dropcap]IRCLE — As the pilot of a chartered Cessna 206 curved in for a landing above the Yukon River, his passengers squinted at white river ice that clung to the south bank near town. Chocolate brown open water filled river channels both upstream and downstream [...]
Calling frogs signal the change of season By Ned Rozell [fusion_dropcap]N[/fusion_dropcap]EAR BALLAINE LAKE — Over the blat of engines and hum of tires on nearby Farmers Loop, Mark Spangler hears the chuckles of the animal he is studying. Male wood frogs in a one-acre pond on the campus of the University of Alaska Fairbanks are [...]