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Researchers probe past to catch glimpse of the future

High Arctic scientists start summer work

JANE GEORGE

CLICK PHOTO TO ENLARGE
Tens of millions of years before human beings existed, trees grew on Axel Heiberg Island, leaving behind pieces of preserved wood like this one. (FILE PHOTO)

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Last week, planeloads of researchers landed in Resolute Bay before fanning out across the High Arctic islands for the brief summer field season.

In 2004, more than 100 projects are slated to receive assistance from the Polar Continental Shelf Project, the federally-funded agency that supplies logistical assistance to researchers in the High Arctic.

Working in the natural deep freezer of Nunavut’s most northerly region, scientists who study everything from glaciers, plants, bones, and stones to animals, insects and birds hope to understand more about the world as it was and perhaps catch a glimpse of what the future holds.

Jim Basinger, a paleo-botanist from the University of Saskatchewan who studies ancient plants, is returning to the fossil forest on Axel Heiberg Island, which he last visited in 1999.

The fossil forest on Axel Heiberg’s Geodetic Hills is unique, because its remains reveal that a tall, lush forest once thrived there.

These trees grew 40 to 50 million years ago when the mean average temperature in the polar region was much higher than it is today.

Stumps and logs from that era, as well as leaves that covered the forest floor, can still be found in their original positions. The fossils are even more extraordinary, because they aren’t petrified or turned to stone, but mummified.

Its preservation has been a concern to Basinger for years. In 1999, a U.S. team started a three-year project to see what the wood could tell about climate change.

Because the fossil forest lies outside the boundaries of Quttinirpaaq National Park, it’s also unprotected from the damage that visitors from Eureka’s defence base or tourists from cruise ships can inflict.

“I’ll just see what it’s like when I get there. I suspect it will be slightly thinner on the ground,” Basinger said.

Basinger said in 1999 he noticed changes from when he first visited the site in 1985.

“Then, it seemed as if the place was just covered with interesting stuff. The big stumps are still there, because they are hard to cart away, but I almost got the sense that the ground had been vacuumed when I was back in ‘99. A lot of the hand-sized, pocket-sized pieces have been taken,” Basinger said.

“There have been a lot of people through there. If every person takes a piece the size of their hand, it doesn’t take very long to have an effect on a small place.”

Dr. Jim Basinger has been studying the Axel Heiberg fossil forest since 1985. (FILE PHOTO)

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Basinger’s research team includes three students and a botanist. They’ll be spending two and half weeks in three spots, looking at what plants grew there and collecting samples of plant DNA.

Among other things, they want to start looking at wood anatomy, using new scientific techniques that use wood as an indicator of climate.

Basinger said they’ll be looking for small pieces of ancient wood that can clearly show the rings marking the trees’ annual growth.

Unlike most wood of such a great age, which has turned to stone, the mummified wood on Axel Heiberg is unique because it still contains cellulose.

“It preserves that chemical signature of the climate when the tree was growing,” Basinger said.

The laboratory at the University of Saskatchewan will analyse the year-by-year changes.

Basinger also wants to look at three-million-year-old wood that can be found at Strathcona Fiord on Ellesmere Island.

“With this material we’re just a sniff away from the Ice Age, so we’re going to be looking at what the climate was like just when the ice started to build up in a serious way in the northern hemisphere,” he said.

“These trees may be able to tell us something about climate immediately before the critical change from mild to cold temperatures. This is particularly important, as global climatic change that humans are contributing to is predicted to involve atmospheric changes that the Earth hasn’t seen in millions of years.”

But first, his project at Strathcona Fiord must get a green light to carry out research on Inuit-owned land.

Basinger is worried some people may think he’s interested in excavating human remains instead of fossil plants and wood.

“There can be a misunderstanding,” Basinger said.

Also returning to the High Arctic are the droves of researchers, wannabe astronauts and assorted Mars lovers who will camp once again by Devon Island’s Haughton impact crater, considered to be a Mars-like environment.

This summer, a group of scientists will live in a mock Mars-style habitat. To follow their progress, consult the www.marssociety/arctic/index.asp.

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