Additional support by the National Science Foundation allowed scientists from UAF and the Alaska Division of Geological and Geophysical Surveys to collect data on
permafrost location, thaw and associated greenhouse gas release from lakes in Interior Alaska's Goldstream Valley.
The findings, published in the Russian science journal Doklady Biological Sciences , represent the first evidence of multicellular organisms returning to life after spending a long period in Arctic
permafrost.
"I wouldn't lose sleep over the microbes that are now thawing from the
permafrost," says Greguske.
A review of available scientific literature on organic matter stocks held in soils and
permafrost underlying the circumpolar region shown that the majority of this research has been carried in Arctic and sub-Arctic regions of Russia and northern America, and main research objects were tundra and forest tundra [6-15].
Permafrost is very sensitive to climate change, and its strength decreases dramatically with rising temperature.
Permafrost is the permanently frozen layer below the Earths surface in frigid areas.
Nearly a century before, a reindeer had been trapped under the
permafrost together with the bacteria that killed it.
In one recent explosion,
permafrost soil was thrown around 1 kilometre from the epicentre of the blast, highlighting the huge force, scientists discovered.
It seeks to safeguard seeds from cataclysms such as nuclear war or disease in natural
permafrost.
The cup had probably been in the
permafrost for a millennium, but the piercing wind in an area where the
permafrost is now melting exposed it when a researcher doing work on the
permafrost, not an archaeologist, happened by.
Siberia experienced record heat this summer, which melted
permafrost in the region.
New research finds that as Arctic regions warm up, previously frozen ancient carbon, known as
permafrost, is thawing and being released to inland streams and rivers.