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The Geological Society of America
Special Paper 461
2009
Field glaciology and earth systems science:
The Juneau Icefield Research Program (JIRP), 1946–2008
Cathy Connor
Department of Natural Sciences, University Alaska Southeast, Juneau, Alaska 99801, USA
ABSTRACT
For over 50 yr, the Juneau Icefield Research Program (JIRP) has provided undergraduate students with an 8 wk summer earth systems and glaciology field camp. This
field experience engages students in the geosciences by placing them directly into the
physically challenging glacierized alpine landscape of southeastern Alaska. Mountaintop camps across the Juneau Icefield provide essential shelter and facilitate the program’s instructional aim to enable direct observations by students of active glacier surface processes, glaciogenic landscapes, and the region’s tectonically deformed bedrock.
Disciplinary knowledge is transferred by teams of JIRP faculty in the style of a scientific
institute. JIRP staffers provide glacier safety training, facilitate essential camp logistics,
and develop JIRP student field skills through daily chores, remote camp management,
and glacier travel in small field parties. These practical elements are important components of the program’s instructional philosophy. Students receive on-glacier training in mass-balance data collection and ice-velocity measurements as they ski ~320 km
across the icefield glaciers between Juneau, Alaska, and Atlin, British Columbia. They
use their glacier skills and disciplinary interests to develop research experiments, collect
field data, and produce reports. Students present their research at a public forum at
the end of the summer. This experience develops its participants for successful careers
as researchers in extreme and remote environments. The long-term value of the JIRP
program is examined here through the professional evolution of six of its recent alumni.
Since its inception, ~1300 students, faculty, and staff have participated in the Juneau
Icefield Research Program. Most of these faculty and staff have participated for multiple summers and many JIRP students have returned to work as program staff and
sometimes later as faculty. The number of JIRP participants (1946–2008) can also be
measured by adding up each summer’s participants, raising the total to ~2500.
INTRODUCTION
Ralph Waldo Emerson believed in “the education of the
scholar by nature, by books, and by action” (Emerson, 1837). He
was probably the first North American philosopher to advocate
for the education of students using a pedagogy with emphasis
on direct student involvement and experience relative to bibliomania. Over the last half century, the Juneau Icefield Research
Program (JIRP) has created a singular summer field experience
founded on Emerson’s educational doctrine (Fig. 1). Southeast
Alaska’s maritime rain forest and Coast Range Mountains provide the extraordinary glacier laboratory that has guided the
program’s founder and director, Maynard M. Miller, with his
application of Emerson’s philosophy by “bringing the students
into nature” (Miller, 1994, personal commun.). Each summer,
JIRP students travel to Juneau, Alaska, and receive an extensive,
Connor, C., 2009, Field glaciology and earth systems science: The Juneau Icefield Research Program (JIRP), 1946–2008, in Whitmeyer, S.J., Mogk, D.W., and
Pyle, E.J., eds., Field Geology Education: Historical Perspectives and Modern Approaches: Geological Society of America Special Paper 461, p. 173–184, doi:
10.1130/2009.2461(15). For permission to copy, contact [email protected]. ©2009 The Geological Society of America. All rights reserved.
173
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Connor
Figure 1. The Juneau Icefield Research
Program’s pedagogy is based on Ralph
Waldo Emerson’s (1837) Philosophy.
on-site synthesis of Alaska’s coastal geology, glaciology, climatology, geomorphology, ecology, meteorology, hydrology, geophysics, and other landscape information. They are trained in the
acquisition of discipline-specific data from nunatak base camps
located on bedrock ridge tops across the 3176 km2 glacierized
U.S.-Canada border region in the Coast Mountains of southeastern Alaska and northwestern British Columbia (Fig. 2). Students
are required to develop a research experiment and the data collection methodology and analysis to address it. Since initial research
on this glacier system beginning in 1946, Miller and his JIRP
faculty colleagues have incorporated geoscience education and
student training into their own Juneau Icefield summer research
program, inspiring generations of earth system science students.
At the 2002 meeting of the International Glaciological Society
held in Yakutat, Alaska, a straw poll of the audience revealed that
over 50% of the attendees, a broad spectrum of the world’s working and highly respected research climate scientists and their
graduate students were JIRP alumni.
Evolution of a Glacier Science Education Program:
A Brief JIRP History
Since its inception, research on the Juneau Icefield has been
directed toward the understanding of temperate coastal glacier
change under the influence of climate. Following World War
II and into the Cold War, U.S. strategic interests included Arctic sea-ice research and measurements of ice thickness to assess
effects on missile trajectories beneath the ice. The Taku Glacier
in the Juneau Icefield system, located in the southeastern Alaska
panhandle, was identified as a more accessible and economical
outdoor laboratory for cold regions research. Beginning in 1946,
reconnaissance of the Juneau Icefield enabled planning for studies of Taku Glacier’s mass balance (Heusser, 2007). The “Project on the Taku Glacier” (The Project), a 10 yr contract with the
Office of Naval Research to the American Geographical Society
of New York, led to eight field seasons beginning in 1948 through
the International Geophysical Year (IGY, 1957–1958). During the
IGY, researchers also measured and monitored Juneau Icefield’s
Lemon Creek Glacier, one of nine glaciers selected for its global
climatic significance (Marcus et al., 1995) and the location of
JIRP Camp 17 (Fig. 2). Members of the Project on the Taku Glacier also investigated icefield-wide glacier processes, the relationships between hydrology and ice-terminus positions, their links
to climate, and the paleoclimate records in adjacent landscapes
through their glacier and bog sediments (Miller, 1947, 1950,
1954, 1956–1957, 1957, 1961, 1963; Field and Miller, 1950;
Miller and Field, 1951; R.D. Miller, 1973, 1975; Heusser, 2007).
Glacier studies in the Juneau region were built upon the work of
Cooper (1937), Field (1947), and others referenced in Connor et
al. (2009), who worked extensively on the post–Little Ice Age
recessional glacier terminus positions in nearby Glacier Bay.
The nonprofit Foundation for Glacier and Environmental
Research (FGER) was established in 1955 to support the Juneau
Icefield Research Program, which followed the termination of the
Project on the Taku Glacier, and which has continued for the last
half century with student training in mountaineering techniques,
glaciology, and extensive field studies of the Taku Glacier region
(Miller, 1976, 1977, 1985; Pelto and Miller, 1990; Marcus et al.,
Field glaciology and earth systems science: The Juneau Icefield Research Program
175
Figure 2. Location map of the Juneau Icefield with selected research camps referenced in text. Basemap is by Bowen (2005).
1995; McGee et al., 1996–2007; Adema et al., 1997; Sprenke et
al., 1999; Miller and Molnia, 2006; Pelto et al., 2008). A seminal date for support of the early JIRP program was 3 November
1957, the launch by the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics of
the first satellite, Sputnik. This event intensified the space race
(1957–1975) between the United States and Russia and resulted
in massive infusions of U.S. federal funding for science education.
From 1960 through 1975, as selected U.S. elementary students
were abruptly switched into learning the “new math,” to find the
next generation of engineering students, the JIRP program’s basic
research mission included the education of graduate students.
Support came in part from National Science Foundation (NSF)
awards to the Institute of Glaciological and Arctic Environmental
Sciences, which transferred from Michigan State University to
the University of Idaho in 1975. Miller’s wide ranging interests in
glacier processes and mountaineering led to his participation in the
first American ascent team of Mount Everest in 1963, following
Sir Edmund Hillary’s achievement in 1953, and included Miller’s
analysis of tritium isotopes in firn pack stratigraphy collected at
7470 m (Miller et al., 1965). His annual Camp 10 (Fig. 3) summer evening recount of this expedition has inspired generations of
JIRP participants to combine their mountaineering and scientific
interests. In 1979, eight undergraduates were included in the JIRP
program for the first time. With support from the NSF Research
for Undergraduates (REU) program (1987–1995), 98 undergraduates hailing from 74 different universities were JIRP alumni by
1997. High school students joined JIRP program through the NSF
Young Scholars Program (YSP). Beginning in 1996, the University Alaska Southeast (UAS) began offering National Aeronautics
and Space Administration (NASA)–Alaska Space Grant Scholarships to JIRP students annually (Table 1), and by 1998, the UAS
Environmental Science Program offered university credits to
JIRP students. Since the beginning of the JIRP program, ~1300
students, faculty, and staff have participated in a Taku Glacier
176
Connor
mer semester JIRP credits toward their respective university field
camp requirements or for their degree program’s breadth course
requirements. Students come from countries throughout the
world to participate in the JIRP program. Summer JIRP student
numbers have varied over the years, ranging from between 15 and
50, depending on funding resources and faculty and staff availability. In-service K–12 science teachers have also participated
in JIRP, deeply enhancing their climate science teaching. Teacher
training methods developed by the JIRP program have provided
a template for other glacier-based, science education efforts for
Alaska’s K–12 teachers and students (Connor and Prakash, 2008).
Introduction of JIRP Students to Alaskan Glaciers in a
Maritime Rain Forest
Figure 3. Matt Beedle (JIRP [Juneau Icefield Research Program],
1995) atop Taku B (1461 m) east of Taku Glacier Camp 10. View is
westward showing Taku Towers in background. This peak is the focus
of an annual JIRP program hike to look at Neoglacial moraine locations, Last Glacial Maximum striations, the Juneau Icefield Peaks, and
for JIRP students to practice their “plunge step” descent back to camp
(photo by Alf Pinchak).
summer field experience. Program support has also come from
thousands of hours donated by the Miller family, summer JIRP
faculty (university and agency researchers), and JIRP staffers.
Many JIRP alumni have also contributed financially to FGER to
help sustain the program through time.
DEVELOPING EARTH SCIENCE CONCEPTS
THROUGH INQUIRY METHODS ON GLACIERS
JIRP Students
To create a lasting understanding of the physical processes
that have shaped southern Alaska’s coastal alpine regions, JIRP
students spend their 8 wk summer learning the questions to ask
about the tectonic and climate history of the region (Huntoon et
al., 2001) while making quantitative and qualitative observations
of glacier ice, mountaintop geomorphology, and the complex
bedrock spatial distribution as they travel across this landscape.
They journey an average of 320 km on foot, skis, or crampons,
across the Lemon Creek, Taku, Llewellyn, and the smaller glaciers of the Juneau Icefield (Fig. 2). Safety is a primary program
concern for all JIRP participants, and much of the early part of
the program is dedicated to safety training. JIRP students are
typically undergraduates majoring in geology, environmental
geology, environmental science, physical geography, or allied
disciplines (Table 1). They come from urban and rural universities, range widely in their athletic abilities, and include ski racers, rock climbers, studio dancers, hockey players, tractor drivers,
and kite fliers (useful skills for deploying low-budget, remotesensing instruments on ice). Many students apply their 3–9 sum-
Students begin their first week in Juneau receiving daily,
discipline-specific lectures and engaging with the region through
introductory sea-level field trips. They learn about the tectonic
history of this contractional orogenic belt (Stowell and McClelland, 2000) and observe its record in local metamorphic and plutonic bedrock outcrops and in the area’s extensive gold mineralization. JIRP students hike through Tongass National Forest’s
temperate rain forest ecosystem and learn how patterns of soils
and vegetation have developed on this intensely glaciated landscape. They observe the coastal geomorphic evidence for sealevel dynamism and post–Little Ice Age crustal uplift (Arendt et
al., 2002; Larsen et al., 2005).
Throughout this time, JIRP students test their glacier field
gear and their own physical stamina. They also learn to make
palatable and nutritious food in cooking groups, to share in camp
maintenance chores, to develop wilderness first-aid skills, and to
become adept at tying the essential knots that will be needed for
glacier rope teams and successful crevasse investigations. For
many years, JIRP students have marched in synchronized rope
teams in the annual Juneau Fourth of July Parade, distributing
Mendenhall Glacier ice to the locals and forming one of the program’s important links with the Juneau community. This community service activity also aids JIRP students in the development
of the teamwork skills and logistical planning that will be needed
later in the summer as they travel across glaciers in small field
parties over crevassed terrain.
Landscape Traverses and Spatial Thinking
The first week of the program provides JIRP faculty and
staff with the opportunities to assess JIRP students’ physical
and mental abilities. This facilitates the selections of viable
field travel groups for overall team strength and skill set diversity. After this first round of intensive and initial training, JIRP
students detach from Juneau’s hydropowered electrical system
and ascend 1200 m from sea level to Camp 17, the nearest
icefield camp to Alaska’s capital city. To access the first JIRP
camp, students, guided by experienced JIRP staffers, climb
steep slopes vegetated by devils club, spruce, and hemlock,
Field glaciology and earth systems science: The Juneau Icefield Research Program
TABLE 1. 1996–2008 JUNEAU ICEFIELD RECIPIENTS OF NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE
ADMINISTRATION (NASA) ALASKA SPACE GRANT SCHOLARSHIPS–UNIVERSITY ALASKA SOUTHEAST
Year
Student
University
Major
1
2008
Nicholas Chamberlin
Appalachia State University
Environmental Geology
2
2008
William Honsaker
University of Cincinnati
Geology
3
2008
Benjamin Kraemer
Lawrence University
Environmental Studies/Biochemistry
4
2008
James Menking
Tulane University
Geology/Spanish/Latin American
Studies
5
2008
Wilson Salls
Vassar College
Earth Science
6
2007
Seth Campell
University of Maine
Earth Sciences
7
2007
Corinne Griffing
University of Nevada
Geoscience
8
2007
Ruth Heindel
Brown University
Geology-Biology
9
2007
Marie McLane
Smith College
Geology
10
2007
Megan O’Sadnick
Wheaton College
Physics/Minor Astronomy
11
2007
Brooks Prather
Central Washington U.*
Geology
12
2006
Peter Flynn
U. of Alaska Southeast
Environmental Science
13
2006
Lauren Adrian
Whitman College
Geology
14
2006
Alana Wilson
University of North Carolina
Environmental Science
15
2006
Xavier Bruehler
Western Washington U.
Environmental Geology
16
2006
Dan Sturgis
University of Idaho
Geology
17
2005
Linnea Koons
Cornell University
Science of Earth Systems
18
2005
Orion Lakota
Stanford University
Geology
19
2005
Janelle Mueller
Portland State University
Geology/Earth Science
20
2005
Mathew Nelson
U. of Alaska Southeast
Environmental Science
21
2005
Nathan Turpen
University of Washington
Earth and Space Science
†
22
2004
Evan Burgess
University of Colorado Boulder Physical Geography/GIS
23
2004
Keith Laslowski
Brown University
Geology/Geomorphology
24
2004
Erin Wharton
University of Washington
Earth/Space Sciences
25
2004
Kate Harris
University of North Carolina
Geology and Biology
26
2004
Aaron Mordecai
University of Utah
Glaciology
27
2003
Lisa Chaiet
University of Idaho
Geoscience/Environmental Science
28
2003
Emilie Chatelain
University of San Diego
Environmental Science/Physical
Geology/Geography
29
2003
William Naisbitt
University of Utah
PhysGeog/Geomorph/Remote
Sensing/GIS
30
2003
Andrew Thorpe
Brown University
Geology
31
2003
Heather Whitney
Colorado State University
Chemistry
32
2002
Ari Berland
Pomona College, California
Geology
Environmental Science
33
2002
Liam Cover
U. of Alaska Southeast
Geology
34
2002
Ryan Cross
U. of Alaska Fairbanks
35
2002
Anna Henderson
Brown University
Geology
36
2001
Eleanor Boyce
Colby College, Maine
Geology
37
2001
Chris Kratt
Plymouth State College
Physics and Geology
§
Geology/Geomorphology
38
2001
Evan Mankoff
SUNY Oneonta, New York
39
2001
Colby Smith
University of Maine
Geology/Geomorphology
40
2001
Haley Wright
U. of California Santa Cruz
Geology/Environmental Science
41
2000
Michael Bradway
University of Idaho
Geology
42
2000
Danielle Kitover
Alaska Pacific University
Environmental Science
43
2000
Brady Phillips
Oregon State University
Environmental Science
44
2000
Jeanna Probala
Western Washington U.
Geology
Physical Geography
45
1999
Matthew Beedle
Montana State University
Environmental Science
46
1999
Julian Deiss
U. of Alaska Southeast
Geology
47
1999
Hiram Henry
Western Washington U.
48
1999
Kevin Stitzinger
U. of British Columbia
Geography
49
1998
April Graves
U. of Alaska Southeast
Environmental Science
50
1998
Hiram Henry
Western Washington U.
Geology
51
1998
David Potere
Harvard University
Geology
52
1998
Joan Ramage
Cornell University
Geology
53
1997
Matthew Beedle
Montana State University
Earth Science
54
1997
Joan Ramage
Cornell University
Geology
55
1996
Adam Hopson
Wesleyan College
Environmental Science
56
1996
Johanna Nelson
Stanford University
Earth Systems Science
Shad O’Neel
57
1996
University of Montana
Geology
58
1996
Brett Vanden Heuval
Hope College
Geology
59
1996
Erin Whitney
Williams College
Chemistry/Geophysics
Note: This table provides a snapshot of the diversity of U.S. institutions that have sent their students to the Juneau
Icefield Research Program (JIRP). Participation by international JIRP students from Canada, the UK, Europe, the Middle
East, Asia, and South America is not reflected in this table, since non-U.S. citizens do not qualify for NASA Space Grant
scholarships.
*U.—University
†
GIS—global information system
§
SUNY—State University of New York
177
178
Connor
transitioning through tree line into alpine elevations covered by
mosses and heath family shrubs. Students end this first ascent
with a final climb up the Ptarmigan Glacier (Fig. 2), walking
directly on the firnpack, which still covers the lower glacier ice
in the early summer. This vertical traverse develops students’
observational skills and begins to familiarize them with the
effects of elevation on synoptic weather patterns and surface
hydrologic processes. Important weather and climate concepts
such as insolation, albedo, sensible and latent heat transfer, and
land surface radiation in high mountain environments begin to
make sense during this initial climb up onto the icefield.
Adjacent to the northeastern Pacific, the Juneau area
receives frequent storms generated by the Aleutian Low. JIRP
students quickly make the connection between the high rates
of precipitation and the location of Alaska’s temperate glacier
systems along this southeastern mountainous coast. The JIRP
camps provide crucial shelter for learning and working in this
wet glaciated environment and facilitate safe access to and from
the glaciers’ surfaces. Climbing up and down the icefield nunataks, students begin to make the links between longer-term climate and landscape development over geologic time scales that
are relatively recent (Herbert, 2006). This physically challenging introduction to the rain forest and alpine glacier systems
lingers for a lifetime in JIRP student memories and provides
them with important ground-truth experiences for the information they have received earlier in discipline-specific lectures
(Huntoon et al., 2001).
Students move onto and off of the glacier surfaces from these
bedrock glacial refugia. They soon are adept at camp life, can
self-arrest with their ice axes on steep, ice-covered slopes, and
are able to rescue their colleagues from crevasses. They are skillful at running diesel generators, ColemanTM lanterns, gas cooking
stoves, creating walk-in freezers in snow banks, and safely loading and unloading helicopters. Students are also trained in the
daily collection of meteorological data at each camp. These data
are used to complement long-term temperature records collected
by a network of temperature sensors and data loggers located
across the icefield (Pelto et al., 2008).
Icefield camps are strategically located about one day’s travel
apart. This requires development or refinement of student skills
in skiing with heavy packs, map and global positioning system
(GPS) navigation, cold wet weather survival, and the identification of crevasse types. After much glacier and camp safety training, students are assessed as “ice-safe” by ever-watchful JIRP
staff safety trainers. They are next able to begin glacier massbalance data collection through the digging of surface snow pits.
Snow stratigraphy, structure, and density are measured in snowpit profiles at a network of annually studied sites. Through these
glacier surface activities, JIRP students become adapted to life in
this environment. They learn to ski safely across glacier surfaces
and navigate in bad weather. These activities are a prelude to
longer-distance, multiday glacier travel across the Lemon Creek,
Taku, and Llewellyn Glaciers, which rise up to 1980 m in their
uppermost snowfields (Fig. 2).
BEDROCK AND GLACIER ICE STRUCTURAL
DEFORMATION: CONNECTING TECTONICS AND
CLIMATE
The location of JIRP camps on emergent bedrock ridges provides students with the opportunities to also study the glacially
polished exposures of the Yukon-Tanana and Stikine terranes,
the Sloko volcanics, and the plutonic rocks of the Coast Range
batholith. Many interesting geologic structures and petrologic
and mineral assemblages can be easily observed on these Juneau
Icefield nunataks. JIRP students can compare their observations
with other geologic regions they have familiarity with. These isolated bedrock exposures surrounded by glacier ice, also provide
JIRP faculty with many outcrop-scale, field mapping exercise
opportunities. Students evolve their spatial analysis and mapping
skills as they interpret the forces that have formed and exposed
local geologic structures. This understanding links them with the
published tectonic interpretations for the region (Ernst, 2006).
As JIRP students create outcrop-scale geologic maps, they also
develop insights into the linkages between orogenic continental
margin development as recorded in the bedrock and the forces
that have sculpted the landscape surfaces under the influence of
changing climate (Anders et al., 2008). The uplift and intense
deformation of the region is mirrored in the near real-time formation of extensional and compressional crevasses in the glaciers.
Fast-flowing, warm glaciers are noisy as they actively deform
with ice flow. Their brittle upper surfaces contrast with their plastically deformed, sheared, and folded basal ice and provide an
important rheological contrast. Students can observe these ice
deformation features and understand the stresses that formed
them. Higher-order thinking allows them to apply this glacier
ice deformation knowledge to observed bedrock structures that
locally have recorded plastic deformation structures such as
the ptygmatic folds of deeply exhumed Yukon-Tanana terrane
gneisses that underlie the western regions of the icefield (Kastens
and Ishikawa, 2006).
Developing Authentic Student Research Projects
With its focus on earth systems science education, especially
with respect to climate, the JIRP summer program has welcomed
many U.S. and international university faculty and researchers
from a wide range of disciplines, as well as in-service secondary
science educators. Faculty participants overlap their tenure on the
icefield, moving by helicopter on and off the ice throughout the
8 wk field program. They provide basic information to JIRP students through in-camp lectures and also through the guided collection of data and its interpretation. JIRP faculty cumulatively
expose students to published research data in glacier mass balance, ice physics and ice velocity, ice thickness, nunatak structural geology, firnpack and supraglacier stream hydrology, alpine
meteorology, nunatak botany, and firnpack ecology over the
course of their 8 wk summer experience. They often give evening
programs about their own current research.
Field glaciology and earth systems science: The Juneau Icefield Research Program
Students keep lecture and field notes in waterproof Rite in
the RainTM notebooks for permanent and portable records of their
daily observations and experiences. These durable archives are
also used for student research project data, gear lists, and other
pertinent information. Students can later refer to their camp lecture notes as they review for their comprehensive final exam
given during the fall semester following their JIRP summer field
experience. This discipline-specific information, coupled with
their field observations, helps to prime JIRP student thinking
and guides the development of modest, short-time-scale research
projects. Students also evolve data collection plans and identify
appropriate analytical methods for data reduction with help from
the resources of the JIRP camp libraries. Field project logistics
are organized by JIRP staff around each student’s geographic
requirements. Once research plans are developed, students are
subdivided into synergistic research groups. Students assemble
their final research abstracts and reports on laptops at Camp 18
prior to the final descent of and departure from Llewellyn Glacier
at the end of the program (Fig. 1).
To complete their JIRP field experience, students leave Camp
18 and traverse across the high ice plateau region that forms the
Alaska–British Columbia border (Sprenke et al., 1999). This
segment of the Continental Divide forms the headwater boundary of the 847,642 km2 Yukon River watershed and separates
the south-flowing Taku Glacier system from the north-flowing
Llewellyn Glacier. JIRP students ski northward up the Taku and
Matthes Glaciers and cross the International Border, following
the Llewellyn Glacier’s north-directed meltwater into Lake Atlin,
British Columbia (Fig. 2). Students leave the firnpack on the
upper Lewelleyn Glacier and hike using crampons over the blue
bubbly Llewellyn Glacier ice to Camp 26 (Fig. 2). They continue
descending down the glacier, exit onto the southern shoreline
of Lake Atlin, and cross the 133 km lake by boat, returning to
civilization in Atlin, British Columbia (population 400). In Atlin,
JIRP students refine their project results and present their work in
a specially convened annual JIRP Science Symposium for local
Atlin residents and visitors alike.
At the end of their JIRP summer experience, the students
are generally transformed individuals. They have gained great
confidence and maturity from their research experiences, from
their enhanced capabilities in remote-site field logistics and glacier survival, and, most importantly, from the cohort bonding
resulting from their shared understanding of the processes operating in this wild, sometimes dangerous, glaciated environment.
Such experiences early in an undergraduate’s education can often
change a student’s way of thinking about their long-term interests
and may redirect their career paths.
179
(IPY) 2007–2009, JIRP faculty and their students have expanded
their research area footprint beyond the Juneau Icefield to other
Alaskan glaciers, as well as glaciers in the Canadian Arctic, the
European Alps, Asia, South America, Greenland, and Antarctica. The long duration of the program has created an extensive
network of student and faculty alumni, including internationally
known glaciologists, climatologists, geophysicists, geologists,
physical geographers, mineralogists, palynologists, physicians,
barristers, economists, photographers, educators, and politicians
who have published a cornucopia of information related to the
Juneau Icefield region and other Alaskan glaciers (see bold-faced
author names in the References Cited section). This ever-growing knowledge base provides an important starting point for each
summer’s incoming JIRP students.
JIRP student observations over the past 60 yr across the
Juneau Icefield have documented (1) a rise in the minimum
winter temperatures over the past 20 yr on the source névés,
1–3.8 °C above temperatures recorded 30–50 yr ago, (2) a rise in
the elevation of the icefield’s regional freezing level, resulting in
a substantial increase in snowfall on the higher névés, and (3) the
marked thinning and retreat of several low-elevation distributary
glaciers (Lemon Creek, Mendenhall, Herbert, Eagle, Norris) relative to the continued and even accelerated advance of the Taku
Glacier, with its high elevation source area and currently shoaled
tidewater status (Pelto et al., 2008). Over the past 30 yr, mass-balance studies utilizing JIRP student data in the Llewellyn Glacier
region have documented a rise in minimum average temperature
from −30 °C to −10 °C (Miller and Molnia, 2006).
JIRP Student Scholarship and Career Pathways
Table 2 provides a summary of the scholarship that develops out of JIRP summer research. JIRP student projects have
ranged from structural maps of the bedrock, petrography, and
mineralization of Taku Glacier nunataks (Abrams et al., 1990,
USF senior thesis) to studies of the valley geomorphology of
the glacially carved Gilkey trench (Fig. 2). Students have provided ground-truth data for remote-sensing imagery by examining the relationships among snowpack, surface geochemistry, and synoptic weather patterns (Ramage and Isacks, 2003).
They have charted the changing distribution of nunatak flora
and fauna with warming climate (Bass, 2007, Ph.D. thesis, University of Georgia) and identified the cryobiologic elements living in the firn pack atop glacier ice. JIRP students have dug
countless snow pits to measure the mass balance of the Lemon
Creek and Taku Glaciers and skied many hundreds of kilometers implementing global positioning system (GPS) surveys
JIRP STUDENT PROJECT OUTCOMES
Adding Value to the Climate Research Community
Spanning the 50 yr between the International Geophysical Year (IGY) 1957–1958 through the International Polar Year
TABLE 2. JUNEAU ICEFIELD RESEARCH PROGRAM STUDENT
SCHOLARSHIP, 1958–2008
Senior/honor’s
Master’s
Ph.D.
Peer-reviewed paper
thesis
thesis
thesis
authors (1995–2008)
35
41
25
21+
180
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to determine glacier surface ice velocities (Pelto et al., 2008).
JIRP student glacier-hydrologists have calculated discharge
of supraglacial streams and firn packs and studied the annual
ogives at the base of the Vaughn Lewis Icefall (Henry, 2006,
M.S. thesis, Portland State University, Oregon, PSU). JIRP
alumni have adapted seismological tools to identify avalanches
and crevassing events and have determined the great ice thickness of the Taku Glacier above its underlying bedrock (Nolan
et al., 1995). Student project results are first presented to their
peers and interested citizens of Atlin, British Columbia, at the
end of the summer program. Student reports are archived as
open-file reports of the Glaciological and Arctic Sciences Institute, University Idaho, and stored in JIRP camp libraries and in
the University of Alaska Southeast (UAS) Egan Library. Some
of this student work has been further developed into abstracts
and presented at Geological Society of America (GSA), American Geophysical Union (AGU), and International Glaciological
Society (IGS) meetings in poster and oral formats. Some work
has evolved further into journal articles and has been published
in peer-reviewed publications (Table 2). Some examples of
recent JIRP student publications are cited in the references section (Molnia, 2008; Cross, 2007; Deiss et al., 2004; Hocker et
al., 2003; Currie et al., 1996; Nolan et al., 1995).
JIRP student alumni can be found carrying out research on
Arctic sea ice or Alaskan, Antarctic, and Greenlandic glaciers;
working for mineral exploration companies; practicing environmental law; carrying out oceanographic research; working overseas in the U.S. Peace Corps; employed by the National Weather
Service; guiding the Mars Rover projects; working on programs
in geodynamic research (Kaufman et al., 2006); working for
government resource agencies or in the National Parks; interpreting satellite imagery to monitor global ice loss; earning medical
degrees and practicing medicine; teaching the next generations
as college and university earth science faculty (Copland et al.,
2003); and working in high schools as science teachers. The
value of this research-based field experiences is evident in the
accomplishments of its alumni and has been widely documented
for other field-camp experiences (Huntoon et al., 2001). Since
the program’s inception, ~1300 students, faculty, and staff appear
on the participants’ lists. Many of those listed have returned for
additional JIRP summers, raising the sum of annual participants
to ~2500 (Foundation for Glacier and Environmental Research,
1997; unpublished JIRP participant lists 1994–2008).
Long-Term Value of the JIRP Field Experience: Six Alumni
Case Studies
From 1996 to 2008, the University Alaska Southeast,
through the Alaska Space Grant Program, has provided scholarships to partially support 59 JIRP students through their 8 wk
JIRP summer (Table 1; Fig. 3). Six of these awardees are profiled
here as they continued their Juneau Icefield studies into related
graduate studies. The synopses serve as longitudinal surveys with
which to track the long-term value of the JIRP experience.
Matt Beedle: JIRP (1995)–Doctoral Candidate (2008)
Juneau Douglas High School graduate and Alaskan Matt
Beedle completed his first JIRP summer in 1995 while still a high
school student (Fig. 3). As an undergraduate at Montana State
University, he returned to the program as a JIRP staff member
in various forms in 1997 and 1999. He received his B.S. in earth
science in 2000. He returned to JIRP during the summers of 2003,
2004, and 2005, working as a Manager of Field and Safety Operations and leading the mass-balance data collection effort. Matt
began a master’s program in geography at University of Colorado
(CU)–Boulder in 2004, working as a research assistant with the
National Snow and Ice data center in the Glacier Land Ice Measurement from Space (GLIMS) program. Portions of his work
included identification of the boundaries of southeast Alaskan
glaciers from satellite imagery. Beedle’s M.A. thesis focused on
the relations between the Lemon Creek and Taku mass-balance
records and North Pacific climate variability (Beedle et al., 2005;
Pelto et al., 2005). Beedle received his M.A. in geography in 2005
from CU along with a Graduate Certificate in Environment, Policy
and Society. He also completed a project on Alaska’s Bering Glacier (Beedle et al., 2008; Raup et al., 2007). Beedle is presently a
doctoral student in natural resources and environmental studies at
the University of Northern British Columbia. He is working with
Brian Menounos and Roger Wheate on measurements of volume
change of British Columbia glaciers and their relationships with
climate as part of the Western Canadian Cryospheric Network.
Matt is a member of the Alaska–Global Land Ice Measurements
from Space (GLIMS) community and provides data updates on
the St. Elias, Glacier Bay, Juneau, and Stikine Icefields.
Shad O’Neel: JIRP (1996)–Research Glaciologist (2008)
Shad O’Neel (Fig. 4B) participated in the 1996 JIRP during
the summer preceding his senior year in the Geology Department of
University Montana (UM), from which he received a B.A. in environmental geology in 1997. Like many JIRP students, Shad had
previous mountaineering and glacier travel experience in Alaska
before joining the JIRP program. Such skills are very useful as trail
parties move from camp to camp. Groups of 10–12 JIRP students,
staff, and faculty make their way across the Lemon Creek, Taku,
and Llewellyn Glaciers carrying their own food and sleeping in tent
camps directly on the firn pack. Following graduation from UM,
Shad began graduate work at the University Alaska–Fairbanks,
under Professors Keith Echelmeyer (JIRP faculty 1974), Will Harrison, and Juneau-based Roman Motyka, in the Glaciology Group
at the Geophysical Institute. He received his M.S. in 2000. Initially
collecting data on Juneau’s Mendenhall Glacier (Motyka et al.,
2002), O’Neel’s master’s research migrated to a study of tidewater
glacier calving retreat at North America’s southernmost tidewater
glacier (LeConte Glacier) near Petersburg, Alaska (O’Neel et al.,
2001; 2003; Connor, 1999). He next worked as a geodetic engineer with University NAVSTAR Consortium (UNAVCO), assisting in NSF-funded glacier research projects in Antarctica, Alaska,
Field glaciology and earth systems science: The Juneau Icefield Research Program
and Iceland. O’Neel began his doctoral work at the University of
Colorado–Boulder under Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research
(INSTAAR) Professor Tad Pfeffer, returning to work on Alaskan
tidewater glacier calving retreat dynamics, this time at the Columbia Glacier in Prince William Sound, Alaska. Shad’s JIRP training
paid off when, from 2004 to 2005, he was in charge of field logistics for the Columbia Glacier seismic project, including scheduling helicopter, organizing all personnel, supplies, and instrumentation, including a blasting campaign. He received his Ph.D. in 2006
and has published his Columbia Glacier research, as well as other
work, including seismic studies on the Bering Glacier (O’Neel et
al., 2005, 2007; Anderson et al., 2004; Harper et al., 2006; Meier
et al., 2007; Pfeffer et al., 2008). He completed two postdoctoral
research fellowships at University of Alaska–Fairbanks and at
Scripps Institution of Oceanography, Institute of Geophysics and
Planetary Physics, University California–San Diego. He is currently employed as a research geophysicist at the U.S. Geological
Survey Alaska Science Center in Anchorage, where he works on
glacier-climate interactions and sea-level rise. Shad is also affiliated with the Glaciological Group at the Geophysical Institute at
University Alaska–Fairbanks.
Erin Whitney: JIRP (1996)–Researcher, National
Renewable Energy Laboratory (2008)
A graduate of Service High School in Anchorage, Alaskan
Erin Whitney (Fig. 5A) first participated in JIRP in 1996 while
an undergraduate at Williams College. Interested in chemistry as
an undergraduate, she later worked as a researcher at Los Alamos
National Laboratory, completed her M.S. at University Colorado–
Boulder in 1999, and returned to JIRP as a staff member in 2004.
She continued her graduate work in Boulder and earned her Ph.D.
in 2006 in physical chemistry under Dr. David Nesbitt. She was
initially interested in studying the chemical processes occurring
above the icefield and in the upper atmosphere. For her doctoral
research, she used high-resolution infrared spectroscopy to study
the structures of slit jet-cooled gas-phase halogenated methyl radicals, as well as quantum state-resolved reaction dynamics in atom
+ polyatom systems (Whitney et al., 2005, 2006). Now employed
at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Whitney’s research
focuses on the synthesis and characterization of novel nanostructured materials for the storage of hydrogen in next-generation
automobiles, as well as the development of new electrodes for
lithium-ion batteries. This work will lead to solutions to our global
fossil-fuel dependency and its consequences.
Joan Ramage Macdonald: JIRP (1997–1998)–University
Professor (2008)
Joan Ramage (Fig. 5B) began her interaction with JIRP in
1997, at the beginning of her doctoral research at Cornell University under geology department professor Bryan Isacks. At that
time, she had already earned a B.S. in geology from Carleton
College (1993) and an M.S. from Pennsylvania State University
181
Figure 4. (A) 2008 Juneau Icefield Research Program (JIRP) student
and NASA Alaska Space Grant Awardee Nicholas Chamberlain of
Appalachia State University pictured at the Herbert Glacier terminus
(photo by Connor). (B) JIRP 1996 student Shad O’Neel deploys an ice
velocity survey tetrad on LeConte Glacier near Petersburg, Alaska, in
1999 (photo by Connor).
Figure 5. (A) 1996 Juneau Icefield Research Program (JIRP) student Erin
Whitney poses in front of the JIRP program’s first Camp 17 building,
the 1954-vintage Jamesway, before skiing about 25 miles from Lemon
Creek Glacier to Taku Glacier’s Camp 10 in typical temperate coastal
rainforest weather (photo by Connor). (B) Joan Ramage Macdonald on
the Taku Glacier circa 1998 (courtesy of Joan Ramage Macdonald).
(1995). In her second JIRP field season in 1998, she guided 16
other students, staff, and faculty through delineation of the 1998
glacier ablation surface characteristic to provide ground truth for
glacier zones detected from Synthetic Aperature Radar imagery
of the icefield. She and her team recorded many measurements
182
Connor
of wetness, roughness, grain size, and meteorological observations of the snowpack as it metamorphosed and roughened over
the summer season. She earned her Ph.D. from Cornell in 2001
using these microwave observations of Juneau Icefield glaciers
to study its snow and glacier melt characteristics (Ramage et al.,
2000; Ramage and Isacks, 2002, 2003). Joan has held faculty
positions at Union College, New York, Creighton University,
Nebraska, and Lehigh University, Pennsylvania, where she is
presently an assistant professor in the Earth and Environmental
Science Department. She teaches courses in remote sensing, and
her research interests have taken her beyond the Juneau Icefield
into the Yukon Territory, Canada, the loess hills of Nebraska, and
the Peruvian Andes and the Patagonian Icefields of South America. Most of her research centers on observation of spatial and
temporal variability of seasonal snowpacks and past and present
mountain glaciers.
Hiram Henry: JIRP (1999)–Geo-Environmental Engineer
(2008)
Juneau Douglas High School 1992 graduate, Alaskan
Hiram Henry (Fig. 6A) received his B.S. in geology from Western Washington University. During his first summer with JIRP
in 1999, his research project involved descending 300 m down
the bedrock cleaver below Camp 18 onto the Gilkey Glacier
(Fig. 2), where he measured diurnal flow stage relationships in
its supraglacial streams. Hiram returned to JIRP in the summers of 2000 and 2001 as a senior staff member and teaching assistant. During the winter of 2000, he worked in Antarctica. In 2004, he began a graduate program in glacier hydrology
and engineering at Portland State University in Oregon under
Christine Hulbe (JIRP student in 1989). He finished his study
of firn pack hydrology and meltwater production (Henry, 2006)
and earned two degrees in geology and civil engineering from
Portland State University, Oregon, in 2007. Henry worked for
Golder Associates, an international environmental and ground
engineering company, in Anchorage, Alaska. His firm recently
worked on a study for the Alaska Department of Transportation.
Hiram helped to delineate the geologic hazards along a proposed Juneau access road corridor in northeastern Lynn Canal,
bordering the western edge of the Juneau Icefield (Golder Associates, 2006). Henry has since returned to Juneau to work on
bridge engineering with the Alaska State Department of Transportation and Public Facilities.
Eleanor Boyce: JIRP (2001)–Geodetic Project Engineer
(2008)
Alaskan Eleanor Boyce, a graduate of Haines High School
at the northwestern end of Lynn Canal and the Juneau Icefield,
participated in JIRP in 2001 while an undergraduate at Colby
College in Maine. For her JIRP summer project, she looked at
strain rates in the wave-bulge (ogive) zone of the Vaughan Lewis
Glacier, a tributary of the Gilkey Glacier. She received her B.S.
in geology in 2003. She began her graduate work at University
Alaska–Fairbanks under Roman Motyka, Martin Truffer, and
Keith Echelmeyer of the Geophysical Institute’s Glaciology
Group. Working with University Alaska Southeast environmental
science student undergraduates in 2004, she carried out a study
of flotation and terminus retreat of the Mendenhall Glacier in
Juneau (Boyce et al., 2007). Since completing her M.S. in geophysics, she has worked as a UNAVCO project engineer on the
Plate Boundary Observation (PBO) Nucleus project, facilitating
geodetic research across western North America and the Afar
Triangle through maintenance of high precision GPS networks
(Boyce appears in Fig. 6B; Blume et al., 2007).
CONCLUSIONS
The JIRP summer field program places students directly
into a dynamic glacial environment and gives them the tools to
observe and understand local ice and landscape processes and
discover the linkage with the global cryosphere. The 8 wk length
of the program allows time for a pedagogy that blends faculty
instruction and mentoring with student field studies and authentic
research in the context of a challenging wilderness glacier expedition. The success of the program can be partially measured by
the scholarly work of its alumni and by their career pathways.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Figure 6. (A) Juneau Icefield Research Program (JIRP) 1999 student
Hiram Henry returns to the program in 2000 as a staffer (photo by
Connor). (B) JIRP 2001 student Ellie Boyce surveys U.S. Coast and
Geodetic Survey monuments for uplift measurements in Glacier Bay
National Park circa 2004 (photo by Roman Motyka).
The extraordinary efforts of Maynard M. Miller, Joan W. Miller,
Ross Miller, and Lance Miller have put students on ice for more
than 50 yr and provided the spark for generations of climate
research scientists. Without them, this paper would not be possible. Thanks also go to Dave Mogk and Steve Whitmeyer for organizing this valuable Geological Society of America Special Paper.
Field glaciology and earth systems science: The Juneau Icefield Research Program
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