Bonanza Creek LTER: Annual Active Layer Depths from 1984 to Present in the Bonanza Creek Fireline near Fairbanks, Alaska

• Main Authors: Viereck, Leslie A., Van Cleve, Keith, Chapin, F. Stuart, Ruess, Roger W., Bonanza Creek LTER
• Format: Dataset
• Language: English
• Published: Environmental Data Initiative 2018
• Subjects: Bonanza; Fairbanks; permafrost; Alaska
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.6073/pasta/cd10f1b2d20a3e3ee86f580675e6680d; https://portal.edirepository.org/nis/mapbrowse?packageid=knb-lter-bnz.7.26

In 1983 the Rosie Creek fire burned sections of the Bonanza Creek Experimental Forest, providing researchers with a chance to study fire effects. Part of the study was to initiate another long term study on effects of firelines in permafrost areas similar to the one after the Wickersham fire in 1971. This dataset comprises depths to permafrost in a transect perpendicular to a fireline that was dug during the Rosie Creek fire in 1983. The transect proceeds from the burned area, across the fireline and into an unburned control area. Permafrost depth is measured at intervals in each area with a frost probe on a yearly basis. There are ten stakes in the burned area, twenty in the fireline and fireline margin areas, and ten stakes in the control area. Portions of the fireline were either cleared of vegetation or scraped to mineral soil. In 2002 Kenji Yoshikawa drilled a 5 meter deep hole between stakes nine and ten.