Banks Island Research Articles

The Canadian Oil Spill Shoreline Research Program: Establishing a Baseline Dataset for the Marine Coast of Northern British Columbia

Abstract 2017-182 The dispersal and weathering processes of crude and fuel oils have been studied for decades and significant scientific information has been published. However, the fate and behaviour of spilled nonconventional crude oil such as diluted bitumen products are less well understood. There is concern that a spill of the oil sands diluted bitumen may come into contact with marine shorelines as it is transported throughout Canada. There is uncertainty related to the fate of spilled diluted bitumen and potential interactions with shorelines. A Shoreline Oil Spill Research and Development Program was undertaken by Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC). In 2013, a 3-year study was initiated and focused on the marine shorelines of northern British Columbia (BC). Four field campaigns were conducted along the entire length of coast throughout the Douglas and Granville channels as well as Banks and Haida Gwaii islands. The field campaigns were used as an opportunity to develop and employ a new approach to collect and compile an extensive pre-spill baseline dataset. Data included an aerial survey with high definition video and a ground survey of representative shorelines where samples were collected and analyzed for petroleum hydrocarbons, carboxylic acid, pesticides, heavy metals, calcium carbonate and sediment grain size. Baseline levels of hydrocarbons in the sediment of the study areas were estimated based on the analysis of total petroleum hydrocarbons (TPH), n-alkanes ranging from n-C9 to n-C40, petroleum related biomarkers such as terpanes and steranes, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and their alkylated homologues (APAHs).

Detection of rain-on-snow (ROS) events and ice layer formation using passive microwave radiometry: A context for Peary caribou habitat in the Canadian Arctic

Over the past four decades, amplified warming in the Arctic has led to numerous consequences. Of particular relevance, negative anomalies of snow and sea ice cover, glacier retreat, and the extended melt of Greenland combined with increasing temperature at double the rate of the rest of the planet have been observed in the Arctic. Several studies have suggested that another response to the current arctic warming could be an increase in rain-on-snow (ROS) events followed by subsequent freezing and the creation of ice layers. We use recently developed detection algorithms of ROS and ice events using passive microwave retrieval approaches to examine the spatial and temporal trends in rain-on-snow and ice layer creation for 18 islands across the Canadian Arctic Archipelago (CAA) over the last two decades. Results show that both icing and ROS event occurrence tripled between the periods of 1979–1995 and 1996–2011, with very active years in winters 1993–1994, 1998–1999 and 2002–2003. The areas with the most combined occurrences are the Boothia Peninsula and Axel Heiberg, Cornwallis, Banks and Victoria Islands. We then compare the rain-on-snow and icing events to Peary caribou estimates to test whether the algorithms can detect weather events associated with population declines. There has been an important reduction in population numbers of Peary caribou, the northernmost caribou population in Canada, over the last three generations. The major hypothesis for the decline is that severe weather events lead to more difficult winter grazing conditions. The comparison with the Peary caribou population estimates suggest that caribou numbers decrease with increased occurrence of ROS and icing events, where 3–4 ROS events and 1–2 icing events in one winter season are sufficient to have a negative impact on Peary caribou.

Influence of Benthic Macrofauna as a Spatial Structuring Agent for Juvenile Haddock (Melanogrammus aeglefinus) on the Eastern Scotian Shelf, Atlantic Canada.

We examined the habitat of juvenile haddock on the eastern Scotian Shelf (off Nova Scotia, Canada) in relation to grab-sampled benthic macrofaunal invertebrate species assemblages in order to determine whether there were significant differences in benthic macrofauna between areas of historically persistent high and low juvenile haddock abundance. Our analyses were conducted over two spatial scales in each of two years: among banks (Emerald, Western and Sable Island), approximately 60 km distant from each other, and between areas of high and low juvenile haddock abundance at distances of 10 to 30 km–all in an area that had not experienced groundfishing in the decade prior to sampling. We also examined fine-scale (10s of metres) within-site variability in the macrofauna and used surficial sediment characteristics, along with hydrographic variables, to identify environmental correlates. PERMANOVA identified statistically significant differences in biomass, density and composition of the benthos associated with juvenile haddock abundance; however it was difficult to determine whether the results had biological relevance. Post hoc tests showed that these differences occurred only on Sable Island Bank where both fish and benthos may have been independently responding to sediment type which was most different there (100% sand in the area of low haddock abundance vs. 22% gravel in the area of high haddock abundance). In total, 383 benthic taxa representing 13 phyla were identified. Annelida was the most specious phylum (36.29% of taxa, representing 33 families), followed by Arthropoda (with Crustaceans, mostly Amphipoda, accounting for 25.07% of the total number of taxa). The strongest pattern in the macrofauna was expressed at the largest scale, between banks, accounting for approximately 25% of the variation in the data. Emerald Bank, deeper, warmer and saltier than the Western and Sable Island Banks, had a distinctive fauna.

The tundra and polar semi-desert landscapes of Banks Island and Prince Patrick Island, Western Canadian Arctic

Tundra and polar desert environments characterize the islands of the Western Canadian Arctic. Prince Patrick Island is a typical polar semi-desert; Banks Island illustrates the intermixing of polar-desert and tundra environments. Interpretation of these periglacial landscapes must consider not only the normal links that exist between rocks, relief, climate and weathering but also specific relationships between low temperature, aridity, snow, frozen ground, wind and vegetation.

Summer refugia of polar bears (Ursus maritimus) in the southern Beaufort Sea

Climate change is altering habitats and causing changes to species behaviors and distributions. Rapid changes in Arctic sea ice ecosystems have increased the need to identify critical habitats for conservation and management of species such as polar bears (Ursus maritimus). We examined the distribution of adult female and subadult male and female polar bears tracked by satellite telemetry (n = 64 collars) in the southern Beaufort Sea, Canada, to identify summer refugia in 2007–2010. Using utilization distributions, we identified terrestrial and sea ice areas used as summer refugia when nearshore sea ice melted. Habitat use areas varied between months, but interannual variation was not significant. Overall, bears made high use of ice over shallow waters, and bears that remained near terrestrial areas used sea ice (presumably to hunt from) when it was available. The majority of the bears remained on sea ice during summer and used the edge of the pack ice most notably west of Banks Island, Canada. A mean of 27 % (range 22–33 %) of bears used terrestrial areas in Alaska and use was concentrated near the remains of subsistence harvested bowhead whales (Balaena mysticetus). Energetic expenditure is anticipated to increase as bears are required to travel further on a seasonal basis.

The species of Mathildella Guinot and Richer de Forges, 1981 and Neopilumnoplax Serène in Guinot, 1969 (Decapoda: Brachyura: Mathildellidae)

The mathildellid crab genus Neopilumnoplax Serene in Guinot, 1969 was originally proposed for several deep-sea species previously placed in Pilumnoplax Stimpson, 1858, including P. sinclairi Alcock and Anderson, 1899 from the Bay of Bengal. Further revision led to creation of Mathildella Guinot and Richer de Forges, 1981, which differed chiefly from Neopilumnoplax in having one instead of two pairs of endostomial ridges, and in the width of the anterior abdominal somites. Most species of both genera are relatively well known, but N. sinclairi , until now, was known with certainty only from the type description and figure of the female holotype housed in the collections of the Zoological Survey of India. Examination of the holotype of Pilumnoplax sinclairi , facilitated by the late Michael Turkay, revealed P. sinclairi to belong to Mathildella instead of Neopilumnoplax . Moreover, comparison of M. sinclairi with M. kyushupalauensis Takeda and Watabe, 2004 from Komahashi Seamount off Japan revealed that the two nominal species may well be synonyms. We defer synonymising the two species, however, until male M. sinclairi can be studied. We also clarify selected historical records of “ Pilumnoplax ” species from Indonesia and mainland Japan, from which we confirm the occurrence of Mathildella serrata (Sakai, 1974) and M. kyushupalauensis , respectively. In addition, we recognise an additional character separating Neopilumnoplax from Mathildella in the respective presence or absence of epibranchial ridges on the carapace. Neopilumnoplax michalis sp. nov. from the Southwest Indian Ocean Ridge is described and compared with its nearest congener, N. heterochir (Studer, 1883) from off southern Africa. The identity of Pseudorhombilia ( Pilumnoplax ) normani Miers in Tizzard, Moseley, Buchanan and Murray, 1885 from Nightingale Island (Tristan da Cunha) and Agulhas Bank, off South Africa, is fixed by lectotype designation as a junior synonym of N. heterochir .

Discovery of a Remarkable New Boa from the Conception Island Bank, Bahamas

Abstract The Bahamas Archipelago is currently known to support three of the 11 recognized species of West Indian boas (genus Chilabothrus) on the Little Bahama Bank, Great Bahama Bank, and four of the southern Bahamas banks. Here we report the discovery of a new species occurring on the Conception Island Bank, located 25 km ENE of Long Island and the Great Bahamas Bank. We describe Chilabothrus argentum sp. nov. (Conception Bank Silver Boa) on the basis of morphometric and genetic data obtained from six individuals. This new boa has a greatly reduced coloration relative to other Bahamian boas, is highly arboreal, and is 3.3% (pairwise) divergent from other West Indian boas in a mitochondrially encoded protein. We estimated a mitochondrial coalescent time of 2.7 million years for this species, and phylogenetic analysis suggests that it is sister to the C. strigilatus/C. striatus/C. exsul clade. The existence of this new boa provides greater resolution of the historical biogeography of the West Indian boas ...

The characterisation of amber from deposit sites in western and northern Canada

For years, the recovery of amber beads and other objects with amber components from archaeological sites in Canada has raised questions concerning the deposit site sources for this highly traded material. Objects found at one site may have originated elsewhere, thus, the accurate characterisation of amber could aid in establishing trade. In this investigation, 12 distinct amber specimens from 11 deposit sites in Canada were studied in order to determine their subclass and other distinguishing chemical features. The ambers were analysed using Fourier transform infrared spectrometry (FTIR) in combination with pyrolysis-gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (Py-GC–MS), using a thermal separation probe (TSP) to perform the pyrolysis and sample introduction. Analysis of the amber from the 11 deposits in Canada showed that they represent three different classes: Class Ib (based on regular-labdanes), Class Ic and Class Id (both based on enantio-labdanes). Different forms were found within the Class Ib and Ic ambers, based on the presence and absence of self-crosslinking and free succinic acid. The techniques identified polymeric crosslinking in three subclasses. These include self-crosslinking of communol and communic acid moieties in two Class Ib (form 2) ambers, self-crosslinking of ozol and ozic acid moieties in one Class Ic (form 2) amber and succinylation of the Class Id ambers. Other important characteristics were discovered, including the presence of free succinic acid in six Class Ib (form 1) ambers and one Class Ic (form 1) amber, the presence of diagenetic analogues of both dehydroabietic acid and callitrisic acid in all Class Ib (form 1) ambers, and the attachment of non-polymerisable terpenoids to the macromolecular structures of two Class Ib ambers and one Class Id amber. Amber beads recovered from three Thule sites in the Canadian arctic were characterised and compared to the 12 reference specimens. The beads from site TkAu-1 (Ellesmere Island) were found to originate from the local deposit at Lake Hazen. However, beads from the QeJu-1 (Cornwallis Island) and OkRn-1 (Banks Island) sites closely matched amber specimens from the major deposit at Cedar Lake (Manitoba). This may indicate movement of the Cedar Lake amber to the arctic via trade.

A key moment in history, anthropology and IslandMelanesia. Hviding, Edvard and Cato Berg (eds) (2014)The Ethnographic Experiment: A.M. Hocart and W.H.R Rivers in IslandMelanesia, 1908.New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books, 320 pp., US95.00,hbk, ISBN: 9781782383420.

Hviding and Berg's collection of essays explores a key moment in the history of anthropology: the 1908 Solomon Islands and Vanuatu fieldwork of the British scholars A.M. Hocart, W.H.R Rivers and G.C. Wheeler as the Percy Sladen Trust Expedition. This expedition has not had the scholarly attention of its predecessor the 1898 Cambridge Torres Strait Expedition (where Rivers undertook his first ethnographic research) or the subsequent fieldwork undertaken by Malinowski. Hviding and Berg have rectified this neglect in this fine volume. The book explores Hocart and Rivers's intellectual legacy in their development of ethnographic fieldwork methods and kinship theory, in their influence on colonial interpretations of depopulation in Melanesia; and in the material objects and photographs from the expedition that remain with the Cambridge University Museum of Anthropology and Archaeology and have been given little attention since they were collected (explored in detail in the chapter by Tim Thomas). This range of interests reflects the expertise of the nine contributors to the volume. Drawn from anthropology, archaeology, geography and history, all are mature scholars who have conducted fieldwork in the very region studied by Hocart and Rivers. Hocart and Rivers were products of their time, even as they experimented with new approaches to the study of unfamiliar peoples and places They had their failings, as several contributors make apparent, yet they also had moments of insight that are still valued today. Each of the chapters notes various ways in which the material collected by Rivers and Hocart provides a valuable archive for contemporary research, even if the old analyses have now been found to be less useful. Assessing the legacy of past scholars is a delicate art. Christine Dureau's chapter reflects on the problem of how best to assess these ambiguities by drawing out an analogy with her contemporary Simbo informants who also share an ambiguous relationship to their pre-Christian ancestors. Rivers and Hocart were deeply implicated in the British imperial project, but their research included friendships with key informants that were deeply respectful of the individuality of particular persons, taking careful note of their relative place in society. Hocart and Rivers did not reduce their Melanesian interlocutors into the all-too-familiar colonial stereotypes of simple ‘natives’ or bloodthirsty ‘savages’ that echo loudly into the present day. They were cognisant of differences of opinion and practice within the communities they studied and did not claim a paternalistic ‘ethnographic authority’. This sensitivity to the life worlds of their informants allowed them to embrace what Hviding's chapter refers to as ‘inter-island practice’, a recognition of the deep interconnections between the island communities of the Western Solomons. Hviding and others draw out the contribution of the expedition to the now discipline-defining ethnographic method of participant observation. Hocart also pioneered a form of what would now be called multi-sited ethnography, not only in his collection of data from multiple places but in his ability to see the profoundly regional nature of life in the New Georgia group. The expedition aimed to demonstrate how (older) matrilineal societies develop into patrilineal, an evolutionary theory that was already losing credibility. The irony of the expedition is that Rivers failed to realise that Vella Lavella was the very kind of society that might have provided him with the evidence he sought. This omission puzzles many of the volume's authors. Nevertheless, in their chapter, Rio and Eriksen argue that Rivers's short-comings are not fatal and that his work on ‘mother right’ and ‘father right’ can be usefully applied in contemporary analysis of gendered social life in Ambrym. Both Kolshus's and Bayliss-Smith's chapters underscore the importance of good ethnography as the grounds of theory. Kolshus is highly critical of Rivers's extrapolations from his brief visit to the Banks Islands and Tikopia. Bayliss (following Hocart and some of Rivers's students) uses Rivers's data from Simbo and Vella to show how inadequate the ‘psychological factor’ was in explaining population decline in Melanesia. Rivers argued that the impact of colonialism was a disruptive trauma for Melanesian societies that sapped the collective will to live and to reproduce. As Bennett shows in her chapter, this theory became very influential among British colonial administrators until replaced by biomedical explanations of depopulation as a result of the lack of resistance to introduced diseases. The Ethnographic Experiment redeems the Percy Sladen Trust Expedition from obscurity, exploring its legacy and shortcomings. The tightly focused collection of scholarship in this volume provides a compelling resource for those interested in Island Melanesia, colonial history and the development of anthropology, both as a distinctive discipline and in the global history of ideas.

Parasitism of Ground Beetles (Coleoptera: Carabidae) by a New Species of Hairworm (Nematomorpha: Gordiida) in Arctic Canada.

The host-parasite associations between ground beetles (Coleoptera: Carabidae) and hairworms (Nematomorpha: Gordiida) collected from the Arctic (an understudied and ecologically important region) is described. Carabids and their parasites were collected from 12 sites spanning the 3 northernmost ecoclimatic zones of Canada (north boreal, subarctic, and high Arctic) using standardized methods. The beetles and hairworms were identified using traditional morphological approaches. Seven beetle species are recorded as hosts: Amara alpina, Pterostichus caribou, Pterostichus brevicornis, Pterostichus tareumiut, Pterostichus haematopus, Patrobus septentrionis, and Notiophilus borealis. All represent new host records (increasing the known North American host list from 14 to 21), and this is the first record of hairworm infection in the genus Notiophilus. Beetles from Banks Island, Northwest Territory, were infected in high numbers (11-19% per sampling period) and were used as an ecological case study. There was no significant relationship between infection status and host species, body size, or sex. Beetles collected in yellow pan traps and in wet habitats were more likely to be infected, likely due to water-seeking behavior induced by the parasites. Morphological examinations indicate that the hairworms collected from all locations represent a single, new species of Gordionus, making it only the sixth hairworm species and the third species of that genus found in Canada. Hosts are unknown for all other Canadian (and 1 Alaskan) Gordionus species.

Acceleration of thaw slump activity in glaciated landscapes of the Western Canadian Arctic

Climate change is increasing the frequency and intensity of thermokarst, but the influences of regional climate and physiography remain poorly understood. Retrogressive thaw slumping is one of the most dynamic forms of thermokarst and affects many areas of glaciated terrain across northwestern Canada. In this study, we used airphotos and satellite imagery to investigate the influence of climate and landscape factors on thaw slump dynamics. We assessed slump size, density, and growth rates in four regions of ice-rich terrain with contrasting climate and physiographic conditions: the Jesse Moraine, the Tuktoyaktuk Coastlands, the Bluenose Moraine, and the Peel Plateau. Observed increases in: (1) the area impacted by slumps (+2 to +407%), (2) average slump sizes (+0.31 to +1.82 ha), and (3) slump growth rates (+169 to +465 m2 yr−1) showed that thermokarst activity is rapidly accelerating in ice-rich morainal landscapes in the western Canadian Arctic, where slumping has become a dominant driver of geomorphic change. Differences in slump characteristics among regions indicate that slump development is strongly influenced by topography, ground ice conditions, and Quaternary history. Observed increases in slump activity occurred in conjunction with increases in air temperature and precipitation, but variation in slump activity among the four regions suggests that increased precipitation has been an important driver of change. Our observation that the most rapid intensification of slump activity occurred in the coldest environment (the Jesse Moraine on Banks Island) indicates that ice-cored landscapes in cold permafrost environments are highly vulnerable to climate change.

The Untapped Potential of Low-Cost Photogrammetry in Community-Based Archaeology: A Case Study From Banks Island, Arctic Canada

In the last 10 years digital three-dimensional (3D) modelling programs have become inexpensive and user-friendly, affording more opportunities for archaeological research and dissemination. New low-cost programs and web-services utilizing photogrammetry are increasingly being used in archaeological projects, but their potential benefits and challenges have not been fully explored. As a part of our research with the Ikaahuk Archaeology Project we used two inexpensive photogrammetry programs (Agisoft Photoscan and Autodesk 123D Catch) as a means to document in situ archaeological features and artefacts from Arctic hunter–gatherer sites and to share research in the form of digital 3D models using online social media. We argue that photogrammetry and 3D modelling can help facilitate engagement and collaboration with interested communities or public groups. However, the ethical implications of digitally replicating and publishing archaeological objects online must be carefully considered.

The historical morphology of personal pronouns in northern Vanuatu

The present paper intends to highlight the power of the Comparative Method when reconstructing the morphological history of modern languages, even in the absence of written documents. The Banks and Torres Islands of North Vanuatu are home to 17 distinct Oceanic languages. This paper documents, for the first time, the paradigms of independent personal pronouns for all these languages – 260 forms in total. It then compares them systematically with the paradigm reconstructed for their common ancestor Proto Oceanic (Ross 1998). The rigour inherent to the Comparative Method enable us to identify 47 morphological innovations in this domain, most of which are shared across several languages. Finally, the distribution patterns of these shared innovations show overlaps, which suggests that the tree model is not the best way of representing the genetic history of language families.

Moat features, Amundsen Gulf, Canadian Arctic Archipelago

Multibeam sonar imagery provides evidence of depositional and erosional seafloor features emplaced by a glacial ice stream that flowed through Amundsen Gulf into the Beaufort Sea during the last glaciation. Figure 1a, c illustrate seafloor features that occur SW of Banks Island in the northwestern part of Amundsen Gulf (Fig. 1b). Water depths in this part of the axial trough range from 350 to 435 m. Prominent seafloor landforms include parallel ridges and grooves that trend northwesterly across the region. Depressions up to 135 m wide and 45 m deep occur as irregular linear and arcuate-shaped interruptions in many of the ridges. The linear interruptions extend across adjoining ridges along trends that lie approximately normal to the trend of the ridges (Fig. 1a, c). Arcuate-shaped depressions (moats) connect with wider inter-ridge valleys trending to the NW. In many instances the linear ridges, apparently undiminished in height adjacent …

Crag-and-tail features, Amundsen Gulf, Canadian Arctic Archipelago

Palaeo-ice streams existed in many marine channels of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago (e.g. Clark & Stokes 2001; Stokes et al. 2006; MacLean et al. 2010, 2015). These include Amundsen Gulf at the southwestern end of the Northwest Passage, where multibeam imagery has revealed a variety of subglacial features (Stokes et al. 2006; MacLean et al. 2012, 2015) (Fig. 1a, b). Six or more stacked ice-contact deposits in NW Amundsen Gulf indicate successive advances of a grounded ice stream from a pinning point on the rocky shallow seabed south of Banks Island. Stokes et al. (2006) also considered this to be a pinning point for the ice stream. Further evidence of the dynamic nature of glacial events in Amundsen Gulf is provided by Batchelor et al. (2014), who recognized sediment sequences deposited by eight individual Amundsen Gulf ice streams or readvances of the same ice stream in the outer gulf and on the Beaufort Shelf. Fig. 1. Multibeam sonar imagery and profile of crag-and-tail features formed subglacially in the lee of bedrock outcrops in northwestern Amundsen Gulf, Canadian Arctic Archipelago. ( a ) Location of study area (red box; map from IBCAO v. 3.0). …

Fountain Girls

Fountain Girls Samantha Tucker (bio) Click for larger view View full resolution [End Page 74] There are two exits out of Fountain, Colorado. The northern exit also acts as an entrance to Fort Carson, the Army base located in the foothills of Cheyenne Mountain, just south of Pikes Peak. Fort Carson is “The Best Hometown in the Army—Home of America’s Best!” A large portion of the Fourth Infantry Division is stationed at Fort Carson, and it has two of its own slogans: “Deeds Not Words” and “Steadfast and Loyal.” The base website welcomes incoming Fourth ID soldiers, promising, “The assignment will be challenging yet personally and professionally rewarding.” Someone told me once that the Fourth ID has had the most casualties in Afghanistan and Iraq. I don’t remember who; I won’t remember when. The southern exit winds past the 7-Eleven, a barn-shaped country-western bar, and a trailer park christened Chancellor’s Mobile Estates. Grandpa once managed that 7-Eleven. My mother was a slim eighteen-year-old clerk when the cocky G.I. who was to become my father walked in with a grin and asked for a pack of Marlboro’s. The country bar has changed hands and names more than a dozen times in the last ten years, and recently, accurately, reopened as Country Bar. Just beyond, the Mobile Estates welcome sign beams a cheery red, white, and blue catchphrase: the american dream starts here. Thailand has sand like Gold Medal flour, water like Windex. [End Page 75] The blue is see-through more than fifty feet below the snorkeling mask, this other world where plants maneuver in alien ways and rocks are not what they seem. The fish dance, frantic for bits of bread, eluding my greedy hands. My back burns through three layers of SPF 80, but I don’t know the protection is failing just yet. I come up for air, and my husband and I watch the palm trees sway on the lush island bank, a live-action postcard: Wish you were here. “You and me in paradise,” I say. While I hover through fleeing fish, Tara is dying, then dead. She is in Fountain. I am in Phuket. We are both twenty-seven, or we were. I didn’t know Tara well, though we were both raised at the foothills of Pikes Peak, the mountain that inspired Katharine Lee Bates to write the first few lines of “America the Beautiful,” in the landlocked state of Colorado. According to local lore, the city of Fountain, a waterless place, was in the running to be capital of our square-shaped state—until the Blast in the spring of 1888, when two trains carrying passengers and explosives, respectively, collided on the tracks I know so well. In Fountain, in summer, we have a Blast Dance, and a caboose race, in honor of those who died. I walked those tracks as the poor kids, sans summer camp, always do. I walked them with food-stamped Slurpee and Cheetos in hand. I walked them every day in the summer to Metcalf Park, where the middle-class boys Little Leagued. I walked to escape my siblings and our stressed-out single mother. Tara, I imagine, knew these tracks too. From what I do know about Tara, we both had mothers who had too many kids, too young, who raised us in houses too small, in walking distance from the 7-Eleven and Paradise Liquors. Both of our fathers died as we were just reaching adulthood. We hocked Girl Scout Cookies at Walmart, dominated Student Council, played in the band, and lost spelling bees. We have, we had, fierce familial pride; our ties to the military are strong, as they are for everyone who attended Fountain–Fort Carson High School. Tara was a friend of a friend, someone I knew from a distance, but I saw these, our commonalities. Did Tara see me too? Her husband came home, if only physically, from Iraq; my little brother, Ronnie, did not come home at all. My husband and I leave the Phuket fish behind for the day, the clown fish and the flat and menacing...

Speciation in an Insular Sand Dune Habitat:Atrytonopsis(Hesperiidae: Hesperiinae)—Mainly from the Southwestern United States and Mexico—Off the North Carolina Coast

ABSTRACT. Genus Atrytonopsis of the American Southwest and Mexico includes the distributionally anomalous species Atrytonopsis hianna of the eastern United States, which has given rise to a species that is, in addition, ecologically anomalous (not just for its genus but for US hesperiids generally): Atrytonopsis quinteri new species lives in sand dunes along a 50-km stretch of two North Carolina barrier islands (Bogue Banks and Bear Island) and on nearby man-made Radio Island. The oviposition site and larval foodplant of this skipper is the coastal grass Schizachyrium littorale, which thrives in the rigorous sand dune habitat. Atrytonopsis quinteri is bivoltine and locally abundant. Courtship can be cursory; larvae go through 6 instars; and adults have a notably distinctive facies but variable genitalia like those of A. hianna (except that some A. quinteri females more frequently express an extreme genitalic variant). Genitalia of this pair of species differ somewhat from those of their congeners, most of...

Flesh-footed Shearwaters (<em>Puffinus carneipes</em>) in the northeastern Pacific Ocean: summary and synthesis of records from Canada and Alaska

Flesh-footed Shearwaters (Puffinus carneipes) breed in Australia and New Zealand, but spend the non-breeding season in the north Pacific Ocean. They are rare compared with most non-breeding pelagic seabirds that occur in the northeastern Pacific. Recent surveys at breeding colonies have indicated a significant population decline since the 1970s. We compiled records of Flesh-footed Shearwaters off the Pacific coast of Canada and Alaska from 1937 to 2013. Flesh-footed Shearwaters were recorded from May to October, with most sightings in August and September. Flocks of more than 20 birds have not been recorded since the 1940s, and most sightings have been of single birds, although some key areas (e.g., Goose Island Bank) have not been surveyed in recent years and previous surveys are confounded by fishing activity. Given the significant population declines at breeding colonies, the conservation status of Flesh-footed Shearwaters should be revisited.

Modeling snowdrift habitat for polar bear dens

Throughout the Arctic most pregnant polar bears (Ursus maritimus) construct maternity dens in seasonal snowdrifts that form in wind-shadowed areas. We developed and verified a spatial snowdrift polar bear den habitat model (SnowDens-3D) that predicts snowdrift locations and depths along Alaska's Beaufort Sea coast. SnowDens-3D integrated snow physics, weather data, and a high-resolution digital elevation model (DEM) to produce predictions of the timing, distribution, and growth of snowdrifts suitable for polar bear dens. SnowDens-3D assimilated 18 winters (1995 through 2012) of observed daily meteorological data and a 2.5m grid-increment DEM covering 337.5km2 of the Beaufort Sea coast, and described the snowdrift depth distributions on 30 November of each winter to approximate the timing of polar bear den entrance. In this region of Alaska, winds that transport snow come from two dominant directions: approximately NE to E (40–110°T) and SW to W (210–280°T). These wind directions control the formation and location of snowdrifts. In this area, the terrestrial, coastal mainland and barrier island banks where polar bear dens are found average approximately 3m high. These banks create snowdrifts that are roughly 2m deep, which historical den analyses suggest is approximately the minimum snow depth required for a polar bear den. We compared observed den locations (n=55) with model-simulated snow-depth distributions for these 18 winters. For the 31 den locations where position accuracy estimates were available in the original field notes, 29 locations (97%) had a simulated snowdrift suitable for denning within that distance. In addition, the model replicated the observed inter-annual variability in snowdrift size and location at historical den sites, suggesting it simulates interactions between the terrain and annual weather factors that produce the snowdrifts polar bears use for dens. The area of viable den habitat ranged from 0.0ha to 7.6ha (0.00–0.02% of the 337.5km2 simulation domain), depending on the winter. SnowDens-3D is available to help management agencies and industry improve their prediction of current polar bear den sites in order to reduce disturbance of denning bears by winter recreational and industrial activities.

Provenance analysis of central Arctic Ocean sediments: Implications for circum-Arctic ice sheet dynamics and ocean circulation during Late Pleistocene

Abstract Mineralogical and geochemical data generated from the well referred shallow core 96/12-1pc on the Lomonosov Ridge, central Arctic Ocean was used to evaluate ice transport from the circum-Arctic sources and variability in sediment drainage and provenance changes. In this study heavy minerals in central Arctic sediments were used to determine those most prominent provenance areas and their changes related to the Late Pleistocene history of glaciations in the Arctic. Provenance changes were then used to infer variations in the paleoceanographic environment of the central Arctic Ocean, such as variations in the distribution of sea ice, icebergs controlled by the Arctic Ocean circulation. Four critical end-members including Victoria and Banks Islands, the Putorana Plateau, the Anabar Shield, and the Verkhoyansk Fold Belt were identified from the Amerasian and Eurasian source areas, and their proportional contributions were estimated in relation to Late Pleistocene ice sheet dynamics and ocean circulation. The results show changes in transport pathways and source areas within two examined transitions MIS6-5 and MIS4-3. The main source for material during MIS6-5 transition was Amerasian margin due to the high dolomite content in the studied section of sediments inferring strong Beaufort Gyre (BG) and Transpolar Drift (TPD) transport for this material. IRD material during late the MIS6 to 5 deglacial event was from terrigenous input through from the MacKenzie route Banks/Victoria Islands then transported as far as the Lomonosov Ridge area. The transition, MIS4-3 in comparison with MIS6-5, shows a clear shift in source areas, reflected in a different mineralogical composition of sediments, supplied from the Eurasian margin, such as the Anabar Shield, the Putorana Plateau and the Verkhoyansk Fold Belt during active decay of the Barents-Kara Ice Sheet presumable associated with an ice-dammed lake outburst then triggered by a strong TPD over the central Arctic. These two studied deglaciations suggest that contributions of different circum-Arctic sediment sources are related to interaction between ice sheet decay, sea ice production and circulation.