Photo Journal

Sediment cores reveal an archive of environmental change going back hundreds to thousands of years

The remote Marshall Islands in the Pacific Ocean are being dramatically impacted by rising sea-levels providing valuable lessons to Arctic coastal communities facing similar challenges in the future.

Sometimes the sheer beauty of the places we work make it all worth it such was the case on this remote beach on the Arctic Circle. Photo by Juliet

Geographic Harbor, Katmai National Park

Cape Espenberg, Alaska

Transporting sediment coring equipment up a barrier beach surge channel, Cape Espenberg, Alaska

A dramatic ice push event locally referred to as an “Ivu” left piles of eroded sediment high up on the bluff at Cape Espenberg in 2017.

Goodnews Bay at sunset

RTK-GPS base station set up at Goodnews Bay, Alaska

Graduate Student collects topographic data to map coastal features

Glacial erratic in along the tide flats of Homer, Alaska

Local environmental coordinator in Pilot Point, Alaska measures bluff erosion from a fixed stake position.

Students learn about sediment stratigraphy in the ACGL

Local environmental coordinator Alice Julius teaches how to clean fish on the Goodnews River

Community members in Dillingham, Alaska measure erosion from a recent storm

Nancy Bigelow show’s off a sediment core collected at Cape Espenberg

2017 Coastal dynamics field trip to Homer, Alaska

Retrieving a core containing a record of ancient hurricane activity in Lanes Delight Blue Hole in the Bahamas

The processing, analysis, and interpretation of sediment cores within the ACGL and the application of multiple paleo-proxies allows us to reconstruct millennial-scale records of coastal environmental changes providing long-term context to current and future trends

Coring in southern lagoon of Northwestern Spit

Coring in James Lagoon

C. Maio looking at strata in James Lagoon

Graduate student taking sediment from core sample to be further analyzed.

Group photo of faculty and graduate students.