For the summer season 2012 there will be a group of 7 researchers from the Alfred Wegener Institute participating in the Yukon Coast Expedition, Herschel Island. Herschel Island is a secondary field site within PAGE21.The team will be from July 17 until August 28 on expedition and will report regularly from Herschel Island in the blog "Yukon Coast 2012".











Dr. Hugues Lantuit is a permafrost scientist at the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in Potsdam, Germany. He is the lead of the Helmholtz Society Young Investigator Group on coastal permafrost. Dr. Lantuit has a Maîtrise in Geography and Geology from the Université Denis Diderot, Paris, France; a Master of Science in Geography from McGill University, Montréal, Canada, and a PhD in Geosciences from the University of Potsdam in Germany. He is interested in evolution of arctic permafrost landscapes and coasts, their reaction to climate change and possible implications for the Earth Climate System. Hugues will act as the "captain" of the German team and coordinate both scientific and logistical operations on site.





Dr. Michael Fritz has worked on the landscape and environmental development of the Yukon Coastal Plain since 2007. He is addressing sediments in permafrost, ground ice and lake sediment cores with a combination of sedimentological, micro-paleontological, and geochemical methods. His PhD thesis and the related publications have provided new insights into the glacial history of Herschel Island and the northern Yukon. This will be his fourth trip to the Yukon and Herschel Island. He is very excited to return to the north once again. It is the friendliness and generosity of the local Inuvialuit people and the peaceful treeless tundra landscape that are so attracting for him. His challenge this year is to deal with a lot of new equipment as well as four new people who need to get the most out of this field campaign for their graduation.

Juliane Wolter is a Geoecologist and likes plants, especially the really small ones. She will be investigating the environmental history of the Yukon Coastal Plain for her PhD thesis based on lake sediments and peat samples which she will retrieve during this year's field campaign. Juliane will use pollen analysis to reconstruct climate and vegetation dynamics from fossil pollen stored in the sediment, and will also look at the modern vegetation. This will be her first scientific expedition and she hopes that she will not be washed into the sea from the sandy spit where the camp will be. Furthermore, she hopes to enjoy the fantastic landscape, grow personally and collect lovely samples.

Josefine Lenz is working on lake sediments in the western Canadian Arctic and Alaska. Her PhD project focusses on reconstructions of past landscape and permafrost dynamics. She was already involved in the organization and participated in the past two expeditions to the Yukon Territory and is well experienced with polar logistics because to her last field seasons. Her experience is absolutely crucial for this year's expedition, although she will not be joining us in the field. She will be missed! She knows how to deal with daily problems like watching out for grizzly bears and belugas, dealing with a flooded tent, getting mud off the equipment, skin and clothes, using the sauna and the Arctic Ocean, and how to organize and guard the stock of chocolate bars.

George Tanski is 26 year old geographer who has been working at the AWI for more than a year. This will be his first expedition to Herschel Island and he looks forward to getting his "feet wet" doing arctic field work. Originally reluctant for biogeochemical analysis in the laboratory he increasingly became involved in the logistical preparations and the checking of scientific equipment. His main goal is to support the team and to collect samples for his master thesis on massive ground ice.

Stefanie Weege is a geologist who started her PhD within the project PAGE21 at the Alfred Wegener Institute, Research Unit in Potsdam in spring 2012. Her main foci are morphological and carbon dynamics along the Yukon Coast in Canada. This is not her first expedition to the Arctic. She first experienced the Arctic during her Erasmus exchange at the University of Svalbard in 2007. Since then she worked for several expeditions on Svalbard, and traveled around the Norwegian archipelago as a tourist guide. It will, however, be her first time on Herschel Island. She is curious about the different arctic landscapes and looks forward to the silence and the forces of nature in the high north.

Boris Radosavljevic is another greenhorn PhD candidate in the group. Having previously been only in the relatively warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico where he studied geology and environmental science for his bachelor and master degrees, this will be his first trip to the Arctic and he is bringing the largest suitcase, filled with cuddly things to keep his subtropical feet warm. He is excited about the upcoming adventure, meeting the local population, the landscapes, and most of all, a highly dynamic coastal environment. Coasts sensitive to climate change and sea level rise are among his main research interests. His fieldwork on Herschel will focus on the marine environment, seeking to shed light on the sediment and carbon dynamics.





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Main page of the blog "Yukon Coast 2012": http://page21.org/blogs/60-herschel