Mineral precipitation in north slope aufeis

The Canning and Shaviovik river aufeis fields were studied on the ground and with aircraft data. Powdered calcium carbonate (CaCO3) patches, a few cm in thickness, were found in discrete locations on both aufeis fields. This is indicative of chemical weathering of limestone bedrock which is known to underlie much of the eastern arctic coastal plain of Alaska. Spring or river water which remains unfrozen throughout much of the winter carries CaCO3 in solution; as the river ice freezes more deeply the CaCO3 in solution is forced upwards through cracks in the river ice. Upon exposure to the cold air CaCO3 is excluded as the water freezes, forming successive layers during aufeis growth. In the melt season CaCO3, slush/powder accumulates in patches on top of the ice as the aufeis melts downward

Utilization of remote sensing in Alaska permafrost studies

Permafrost related features such as: aufeis, tundra, thaw lakes and subsurface ice features were studied. LANDSAT imagery was used to measure the extent and distribution of aufeis in Arctic Slope rivers over a period of 7 years. Interannual extent of large aufeis fields was found to vary significantly. Digital LANDSAT data were used to study the short term effects of a tundra fire which burned a 48 sq km area in northwestern Alaska. Vegetation regrowth was inferred from Landsat spectral reflectance increases and compared to in-situ measurements. Aircraft SAR (Synethic Aperture Radar) imagery was used in conjunction with LANDSAT imagery used in conjunction with LANDSAT imagery to qualitatively determine depth categories for thaw lakes in northern Alaska

Use of LANDSAT data for river and lake ice engineering studies

There are no author-identified significant results in this report

Geomorphic processes on the North Slope of Alaska

Three physiographic provinces comprise the North Slope of Alaska: the Arctic Mountains, the Arctic Foothills and the Arctic Coastal Plain Provinces. The features and processes in the Arctic Coastal Plain, a zone of continuous permafrost, are stressed in this paper. The evidence for and mechanisms of the geomorphic cycle are discussed starting with frost cracks. Frost cracks may form polygonal ground which leads to low-centered ice wedge polygons in areas having ice-rich permafrost. As the low-centered ice wedge polygons enlarge due to thermal erosion they may evolve into thaw lakes which are largely oriented in a northwest-southeast direction on the Arctic Coastal Plain. Eventual drainage of a deep lake may result in a closed-system pingo. Evidence of the various stages of the geomorphic cycle is ubiquitous on the Alaskan Arctic Coastal Plain and indicates the ice content of the permafrost in some areas

Analysis of the origin of Aufeis feed-water on the arctic slope of Alaska

The origin of water feeding large aufeis fields (overflow river ice) on the Arctic Slope of Alaska is analyzed. Field measurements of two large aufeis fields on the eastern Arctic Slope were taken during July of 1978 and 1979. Measurements of aufeis extent and distribution were made using LANDSAT Multispectral Scanner Subsystem (MSS) satellite data from 1973 through 1979. In addition, ice cores were analyzed in the laboratory. Results of the field and laboratory studies indicate that the water derived from aufeis melt water has a chemical composition different from the adjacent upstream river water. Large aufeis fields are found in association with springs and faults thus indicating a subterranean origin of the feed water. In addition, the maximum extent of large aufeis fields was not found to follow meteorological patterns which would only be expected if the origin of the feed water were local. It is concluded that extent of large aufeis in a given river channel on the Arctic Slope is controlled by discharge from reservoirs of groundwater. It seems probable that precipitation passes into limestone aquifers in the Brooks Range, through an interconnecting system of subterranean fractures in calcareous rocks and ultimately discharges into alluvial sediments on the coastal plain to form aufeis. It is speculated that only small aufeis patches are affected by local meteorological parameters in the months just prior to aufeis formation

Learning Membership Functions in a Function-Based Object Recognition System

Functionality-based recognition systems recognize objects at the category level by reasoning about how well the objects support the expected function. Such systems naturally associate a ``measure of goodness'' or ``membership value'' with a recognized object. This measure of goodness is the result of combining individual measures, or membership values, from potentially many primitive evaluations of different properties of the object's shape. A membership function is used to compute the membership value when evaluating a primitive of a particular physical property of an object. In previous versions of a recognition system known as Gruff, the membership function for each of the primitive evaluations was hand-crafted by the system designer. In this paper, we provide a learning component for the Gruff system, called Omlet, that automatically learns membership functions given a set of example objects labeled with their desired category measure. The learning algorithm is generally applicable to any problem in which low-level membership values are combined through an and-or tree structure to give a final overall membership value.Comment: See http://www.jair.org/ for any accompanying file

Far-infrared reflectance of spacecraft coatings

Far infrared reflectance and transmittance as function of wavelength for spacecraft coating

A review of LANDSAT-D and other advanced systems relative to improving the utility of space data in water-resources management

Ther are no author-identified significiant results in this report