A remarkable year in research
Rockets explore flickering and pulsating auroras
Two rockets launched from Poker Flat Research Range in February 2025 produced data about the fastest observable variations of the aurora.
One rocket gathered information about flickering aurora, and the other gathered data about fast-pulsating aurora.
The work is led by Robert Michell of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, with which UAF has a contract to operate the range.
“The instruments performed as they were designed to,” Michell said. “We had good aurora for both launches.”
Photo by Eric Marshall/UAF Geophysical Institute.
The second of two rockets in the Ground Imaging to Rocket investigation of Auroral
Fast Features mission launches on Feb. 8.
Photo by Heather McFarland.
Snow melts in Interior ӰƬ during May 2022.
Big fire seasons can follow early snow meltoff
When ӰƬ’s spring snow melts off early, more acreage than normal is likely to burn during that year’s summer wildfire season, UAF researchers have found.
“During many of the largest, most extreme fire seasons, we had early snowoff,” explained Peter Bieniek of the UAF International Arctic Research Center.
Such years often have had spring weather systems with persistent clear, sunny and warm weather, sometimes with thunderstorms. When such conditions last for months, they can lead to big fire seasons, the study found.
The work was part of a larger effort to help ӰƬ’s land managers better prepare for wildfire seasons.
Northern pike cross marine waters in ӰƬ
Northern pike are moving through salt water to invade freshwater habitats in Southcentral ӰƬ, according to a new study.
Researchers at UAF and the ӰƬ Department of Fish and Game made the discovery by looking at tiny ear stones called otoliths from northern pike. Strontium isotopes in an otolith can be matched with chemical signatures in waterways, showing where a fish has traveled.
The study found pike in three freshwater locations with isotopic signatures that matched upper Cook Inlet water, suggesting they had occupied the inlet at some point.
Until now, the spread of northern pike was thought to be limited to freshwater corridors or illegal introductions by people.
Photo by Rob Massengill/ADFG.
ӰƬ Department of Fish and Game technician Jerry Strait catches a northern pike
in Vogel Lake in 2019.
Photo by Els Vermeulen.
Southern right whales, like this mother and calf, can live for 130 years or more —
almost twice as long as previously understood.
Right whales live far longer than expected
Right whales can survive for more than 130 years — almost twice as long as previously understood, according to a new study.
Scientists, including lead author Greg Breed of UAF, analyzed four decades of photos of individual whales. Researchers used the resulting data to build survivorship curves — graphs that show the proportion of a population that survives to each age.
Analysis revealed that Southern right whales, once thought to live only 70 to 80 years, can exceed lifespans of 130 years, with some individuals possibly reaching 150 years. North Atlantic right whales should live similarly long lives, Breed said, but they rarely survive past 50 because most get tangled in fishing gear, starve or are struck by ships.
Ancient people ate mostly mammoths
Scientists have uncovered the first direct evidence that ancient Americans relied primarily on mammoths and other large animals for food.
The study used stable isotope analysis to model the diet of the mother of an infant discovered at a 13,000-year-old Clovis burial site in Montana.
The findings support the hypothesis that Clovis people specialized in hunting large animals. The Clovis people inhabited North America around 13,000 years ago.
“What's striking to me is that this confirms a lot of data from other sites,” said co-lead author Ben Potter of the University of ӰƬ Fairbanks. “For example, the animal parts left at Clovis sites are dominated by megafauna, and the projectile points are large, affixed to darts, which were efficient distance weapons.”
Graphic by Eric Carlson.
An artist’s reconstruction of Clovis life 13,000 years ago shows the Anzick-1 infant
with his mother consuming mammoth meat near a hearth. Another individual crafts tools,
including dart projectile points and atlatls. A mammoth butchery area is visible nearby.
The scene is inspired by the La Prele mammoth site in Wyoming and set against the
Montana landscape where the Anzick burial was discovered. Artist Eric Carlson created
the scene in collaboration with archaeologists Ben Potter (UAF) and Jim Chatters (McMaster
University).
UAF photo by Eric Engman.
Smoke from nearby wildfires creates a haze on the University of ӰƬ Fairbanks Troth
Yeddha’ Campus in June 2022.
New method quickly estimates air quality in wildfires
A new method of determining surface air quality during wildfires will benefit ӰƬ’s communities.
Tianlang Zhao, a UAF graduate student, developed the method to fill a major gap in ӰƬ’s air quality monitoring system.
Not enough standardized monitoring sites exist in the state to rapidly and accurately
measure fine particulate pollution, known as PM 2.5, during wildfires.
So Zhao, using years of data from various sites and satellite observations, created
a model that estimates air quality under different fire conditions.
“The unique feature of our method is that it provides an observational-based, quick and direct estimation of surface PM 2.5 levels across ӰƬ during wildfire season,” he said.
Iliamna’s freshwater harbor seals are unique
Seals in Iliamna Lake are notably different at multiple genetic markers from the seals found in nearby Bristol Bay and the broader Pacific Ocean, a study has found.
That means Iliamna’s seals could be a unique form.
“Iliamna seals are super interesting and unique,” said UAF’s Donna Hauser, who contributed to the study. “There are only five different populations of seals who live year-round in freshwater across the entire world.”
Photo by Donna Hauser.
A harbor seal swims in Iliamna Lake, ӰƬ, in 2015.
Photo by Jared Weems.
Scientists aboard the patrol vessel Stimson launch the glider Shackleton in May 2024
to search for tagged juvenile crabs in Bristol Bay.
Glider tracks Bering Sea crabs
A remotely piloted underwater glider is showing promise as a tool to track crabs in the Bering Sea, where their numbers have plummeted.
The ӰƬ Department of Fish and Game and UAF have tested the glider Shackleton for the past three years to locate tagged crabs.
The 6-foot glider can survey vast areas in search of crabs outfitted with acoustic transmitter tags, and some transmitter signals can even indicate whether a tagged crab has been eaten by a predator.
This year’s project was completed for a fraction of the cost of recovering tagged crabs with dedicated survey boats or fisheries gear.
New method can warn of earthquake likelihood
The public could have days or months of warning about a major earthquake, thanks to a new technique that uses machine learning to analyze data.
Research assistant professor Társilo Girona of the UAF Geophysical Institute led the work.
“Advanced statistical techniques, particularly machine learning, have the potential to identify precursors to large-magnitude earthquakes by analyzing datasets derived from earthquake catalogs,” Girona said.
The researchers wrote a computer algorithm to search the data to look for abnormal seismic activity.
Photo courtesy of ӰƬ Department of Transportation and Public Facilities.
The Mirror Lake offramp on the Glenn Highway near Chugiak, ӰƬ, shows damage after
the Nov. 30, 2018, earthquake.
Photo by Kate Ruck.
Pink salmon spawn in Gilmour Creek, Prince William Sound, ӰƬ.
Hatchery fish reduce wild salmon diversity
Salmon hatcheries increase wild salmon abundance but potentially at the cost of reduced diversity, according to a new UAF–led study.
Salmon hatcheries have helped push annual pink salmon harvests in Prince William Sound, ӰƬ, from about 4 million fish prior to hatchery programs to roughly 50 million in recent years. The hatchery-raised fish are straying onto natural spawning grounds and interbreeding with wild populations.
Simulations showed that wild fish populations grew because more fish reproduced than would have without hatchery strays. But as hatchery-origin gene variants spread into wild populations, diversity among those populations declined.
“Lower diversity among populations can reduce resilience to future changes,” said the study’s lead author, Samuel May, who undertook the work while a postdoctoral fellow at UAF’s College of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences.