Permafrost Vegetation Observations; Alaska, 2014

• Main Authors: Burke J. Minsley, Neal J. Pastick, Bruce K. Wylie, Dana R.N. Brown, M. Andy Kass
• Format: Dataset
• Language: unknown
• Published: USGS Science Data Catalog 2016
• Subjects: Permafrost; Fire; Disturbance; Vegetation; geoscientificInformation; environment; Alaska; City of Fairbanks; Tok; Canada; Fairbanks; Active layer thickness; permafrost
• Online Access: https://search.dataone.org/view/00745e21-aff7-47ba-99f1-607071052640

Fire can be a significant driver of permafrost change in boreal landscapes, altering the availability of soil carbon and nutrients that have important implications for future climate and ecological succession. However, not all landscapes are equally susceptible to fire-induced change. As fire frequency is expected to increase in the high latitudes, methods to understand the vulnerability and resilience of different landscapes to permafrost degradation are needed. Geophysical and other field observations reveal details of both near-surface (less than 1 m) and deeper (greater than 1 m) impacts of fire on permafrost along 11 transects that span burned-unburned boundaries in different landscape settings within interior Alaska. Data collected along the 11 transect locations include: electrical resistivity tomography (ERT), downhole nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), active layer thickness (ALT), organic layer thickness (OLT), and plant species cover. These geospatial datasets are the foundation for the journal article, "Evidence for non-uniform permafrost degradation after fire in boreal landscapes", published in the Journal of Geophysical Research - Earth Surface.