Theresa Bakker
907-474-6941

1/25/12

The University of Alaska Museum of the North has installed a new pipeline super pig on its grounds.

The pig, donated to the museum’s ethnology and history collection by Alyeska Pipeline Service Company, replaces a pig given to the museum in 1984.

“That older, mostly steel and rubber pig has been on exhibit in the museum’s yard since it came to us. It sits in a vertical position in full sunlight,” said collection manager Angela Linn. “The rubber components have severely degraded over the past few years and the bumper pieces have been falling apart, so we approached Alyeska to see if they had a spare pig ready to be decommissioned.”

A pig is a device inserted into a pipeline to clean it, separate products or dewater the line; to inspect the pipeline; and to perform other special duties, such as plugging isolated pipelines. The trans-Alaska pipeline system is “pigged” every eight days.

Alyeska agreed to donate a S.U.N. Engineering “Super Pig Hybrid-B” that was in operation from about 2007 until 2010. This version has cutting devices in a configuration of disks and cups, but was decommissioned after the company transitioned to an all-disc pig in 2011.

Getting such a piece into the collection means more than having the donor drop it off, Linn said. “After many months of organization, we identified a location and then designed, custom-fabricated and installed a saddle mount.”

On Dec. 6, 2011, after more than two years of coordination, the pig was delivered.

The story of natural resource extraction is a part of Alaska’s history, Linn said. “The technology and equipment used through the entire process are a big part of telling that story.”

The comparison between the pig from the 1980s, which will be removed from exhibit this summer but preserved in an off-site facility, and the new super pig demonstrates the innovations in materials and technology that have improved efficiency in Alaska’s oil industry.

“This is one of the primary reasons we have research museums: for comparing and contrasting changes through time. Alyeska’s generous donation helps us tell this story in relation to the people of Alaska,” Linn said. “The ethnology and history collection depends on donations to expand the collection and the willingness of corporations such as Alyeska to pass along items to help us achieve our mission.”

Visitors can inspect the pipeline pig any time or day. Since it is too large to be curated inside, it is located on the northwest corner of the building, along the edge of the parking lot.

ADDITIONAL CONTACTS: Angela Linn, ethnology and history collection manager, at 907-474-1828 or via email at [email protected].

ON THE WEB: museum.uaf.edu

NOTE TO EDITORS: Images are available for download www.uafnews.com.

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ASF#2097
Jan. 11, 2012
By Ned Rozell

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Home of the trans-Alaska pipeline, Alaska has been the setting for a few

epic engineering battles rendered against nature. The Million Dollar Bridge,
spanning the lower Copper River, is a reminder of another improbable Alaska
construction project.

Completed in 1910, the Million Dollar Bridge was the crux of the Copper
River and Northwestern Railway, built to carry copper ore 196 miles from
Kennicott to Cordova. Along that route were some of the greatest obstacles
Alaska offers: steep canyons, rivers, hurricane-force winds, mosquitoes,
and dozens of glaciers.

A fortune in high-grade copper locked deep in the Wrangell Mountains
inspired Outside investors, including the Guggenheim family and J.P. Morgan,
to risk building a railway from an ice-free port on Alaska’s southcentral
coast to the rich copper deposits at Kennicott. In 1906, planners
recommended four possible routes to the copper – including two from Valdez
to the Copper River via 2,000-foot passes – but railroad builders chose a
route from Cordova that would follow the Copper River north to Chitina, then
continue 60 miles to Kennicott.

Glaciers stuck out their tongues in defiance along the entire route, but the
pull of financial gain and human ingenuity overcame them. In one case,
workers laid tracks across the debris-covered ice of Allen Glacier for
five-and-one-half miles, according to my two sources for this column, The
Copper Spike by Lone Janson and Iron Rails to Alaskan Copper by Alfred
Quinn.

Two of the largest obstacles on the route were Miles and Childs glaciers,
both of which calve icebergs into the Copper River from opposite banks.
Erastus Hawkins, the engineer in charge of the railroad project, and Michael
Heney, the construction contractor, preferred to run the railroad alongside
the Copper River, but the Miles and Childs glaciers sprawl over both
shorelines at a pinch-point about 15 miles from the river¹s mouth. Not
listening to other engineers who thought the problem was insurmountable,
Hawkins designed a 1,550-foot steel bridge to span the Copper River at a
river bend between the two glaciers.

Geologists had found that the glaciers had fused during the past several
centuries, and the leader of a U.S. Army expedition up the Copper River in
1885 reported that the nose of Miles Glacier was then about 120 yards from
the site of the bridge. By 1908, both glaciers had receded to provide a gap
of about three miles.

Starting in April 1909, workers scrambled to complete the Million Dollar
Bridge, spurred on by a U.S. law that gave railroad developers four years to
complete a designated route. After four years, the government would tax them
$100 per operating mile per year. Contactors finished the bridge by
midsummer of 1910.

Soon after construction of the Million Dollar Bridge, which cost $1.4
million to build, the glaciers continued to threaten the railroad.

In August 1910, two glaciologists from the National Geographic Society
studied the sudden advances of both Miles and Childs glaciers. A northern
lobe of Childs Glacier began creeping toward the bridge in June, and by
August it was moving eight feet per day. On August 17, the 200-foot face of
the glacier was 1,624 feet away from the bridge.

Ralph Tarr, one of the glaciologists, speculated on what would happen if the
glacier continued to advance in 1911.

“It is absolutely certain that no corps of engineers could save the bridge
and railway if the glacier should advance that far,” he wrote.

Childs Glacier did not engulf the bridge, but the glacier crept to within
1,475 feet in June 1911. Childs and Miles glaciers have since retreated,
sparing the Million Dollar Bridge, which served the railway from 1910 until
1938, when low copper prices forced the shutdown of the Copper River and
Northwestern Railway. The bridge survived nature’s whims until March 23,
1964, when the Good Friday Earthquake knocked the northernmost span from its
concrete piling, a flaw that state workers repaired in 2005.

This column is provided as a public service by the Geophysical Institute,
University of Alaska Fairbanks, in cooperation with the UAF research
community. Ned Rozell is a science writer at the institute. This column
first appeared in 2002.

Theresa Bakker
907-474-6941
1/13/12

The University of Alaska Museum of the North will host a free photo presentation Thursday, Jan. 19 from 6-8 p.m.

The event will feature the photographs of Piotr Naskrecki, including close-ups of insects, horseshoe crabs and other relic organisms with ties to the Jurassic Period. He will also sign copies of his books.

This event is part of the museum’s special exhibit, “Leggy! Live Spiders and Their Relatives,” showing Monday through Saturday from 9 a.m.-5 p.m. For more information, call 907-474-7505 or visit the museum online at museum.uaf.edu.

ON THE WEB: http://www.uaf.edu/museum/calendar/

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Marie Gilbert
907-474-7412
1/13/12

University of Alaska Fairbanks zoophysiologist Brian Barnes has been named a 2011 Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the world’s largest general scientific society and publisher of the journal Science.

Barnes was recognized for distinguished contributions to leadership in arctic science and research in hibernation and cryobiology: the study of the effects of low temperatures on living things. Barnes is the director of the UAF Institute of Arctic Biology and the science director at Toolik Field Station.

An internationally recognized expert in hibernation, Barnes’ research focuses on physiological ecology and thermoregulation of hibernating mammals – especially black bears and arctic ground squirrels.

Barnes divides his research time between laboratory work on the UAF campus and fieldwork at Toolik Field Station, an international research facility located on Alaska’s North Slope. As director of IAB, Barnes supports the life sciences research of about 50 faculty members and 100 associated postdoctoral fellows, researchers and staff members.

Barnes is among 539 new fellows chosen nationwide for 2011. He will receive a certificate and a blue and gold rosette—representing science and engineering—at the AAAS annual meeting in Vancouver Feb. 18. He joins the ranks of more than a dozen Alaskans chosen as fellows over the years.

The tradition of AAAS Fellows, who are chosen by their peers, began in 1874. Members can be considered if nominated by the steering groups of the association’s 24 sections, by any three fellows who are current AAAS members or by the AAAS chief executive officer.

ADDITIONAL CONTACTS: Brian Barnes at 907-474-7648 or [email protected].

ON THE WEB: http://www.aaas.org/aboutaaas/fellows/2011.shtml

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Theresa Bakker
907-474-6941
1/12/12

Each semester for the past 30 years, Fairbanks school children have settled down in front of a docent to learn the secrets of the museum. The lessons they absorb from the collections and exhibits are a result of a legacy of teamwork between local teachers and the museum’s education staff.

Terry Dickey was the museum’s education director when the guided school tours program began in the spring of 1982.

“We met with teachers who helped us design topics that matched learning outcomes with classroom objectives,” Dickey said. “They knew that students learn in different ways and offered valuable suggestions about using hands-on objects, storytelling, and activities.”

After years of collaboration, the museum today features a core of volunteers who serve as docents. They are a major strength of the program, says Jennifer Arseneau, the museum’s education and public programs manager.

“These dedicated volunteers have a passion for learning and sharing the joy of discovery with kids,” she said. “It’s a real pleasure to work with them and see the unique assets each docent brings to the program. The interaction with multiple docents makes our program unique. Kids interact with several adults, all passionate about museums and discovery.”

People with a variety of interests and backgrounds have joined the team. All it takes is a willingness to commit to the museum and take part in one of two yearly training sessions. This week, the education department is preparing the next docent class, something school and community liaison Peggy Hetman says is vital to educating our community.

“We’re very fortunate to have the UA Museum of the North in our backyard,” Hetman said. “It’s the place to ask an expert and learn about Alaska’s diversity of people, animals, and land. Whether visiting with family, participating in Family Day programs or other special events, such as Halloween or the open house, the museum has something for everyone.”

More than 386 Fairbanksans have been museum docents, including Denali Elementary School principal Tim Doran, Amy Iutzi, director of the Alaska Adult Education Association, and CTC culinary arts program assistant professor Jennifer Jolis. Almost 72,000 elementary school students have participated in guided field trips since the program’s inception.

As part of the program’s outreach to the local school community, the museum is hosting an Educators’ Night on Thursday, Jan. 26 from 4-6 p.m. for teachers to explore the museum’s offerings and plan a school trip for their class. Pre-registration is required by Jan. 20.

ADDITIONAL CONTACTS: Jennifer Arseneau, education and public programs manager, at 907-474-6948 or via email at [email protected], and Peggy Hetman, school and community liaison, at 907-474-5360 or via email at [email protected].

ON THE WEB: museum.uaf.edu

TB/1-12-12/133-12

By Nancy Tarnai

January 11, 2011

 

A historic moment occurred Dec. 7 in a tucked away barn at a Delta Junction farm. No bells, fireworks or champagne marked the occasion, but it was a joyous moment for Bryce Wrigley and his family when they ground barley to make flour.

 

The news of the first time in decades a commercial flour mill has operated in Alaska has been met with enthusiasm. Not long after Wrigley set up his Alaska Flour Co. Facebook page he attracted nearly 500 fans and had calls from as far away as Nome, Dillingham, Cordova and Valdez requesting flour. “We won’t be extending that far this first year,” Wrigley said.

 

Asked why he chose to invest in such an expensive operation, Wrigley said he and his wife Jan wanted to do something to provide food for Alaskans. They started their journey by visiting flour mills around the Lower 48 when they were on vacation last year.

 

This fall he ordered equipment for the mill from Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Michigan and has been working hard ever since to get the business up and running.

 

“The food security stuff really kicked it off,” Wrigley said. “Since Hurricane Katrina, it’s been on my mind.” He said when looking at the food pyramid, Alaska can grow something in every category. “Why can’t we get to the point of raising enough food in the state for three months?” he asked. In the event of a pandemic, Wrigley said the government has addressed masks and rubber gloves but not food. “It takes 90 days for a pandemic to run its course,” he said. “We have a one-week supply of food in state so all we need is two months and three weeks.”

 

He has high hopes that the state and university can continue agricultural research. “We are the most vulnerable state,” he said. “We have to take care of ourselves, otherwise the time will come when we can’t.”

 

Wrigley, who is a grain farmer and president of the Alaska Farm Bureau, said he tried to get other folks interested in starting a mill. “In June I decided it was going to happen and I should look into what it would take.” His research included all the details of not only grinding grain, but packaging and marketing flour.

 

The impressive electric-powered mill can produce a 20, 40 or 100-mesh grain (the higher the number the finer the grain) and Wrigley is working with Ingal wheat and Sunshine hulless barley to produce flour. He grows both on his own farm and is hoping to convince neighbors to join the endeavor. “It will change the crops we raise,” Wrigley said. He plans to plant 200 acres of barley and 300 acres of wheat this year.

 

The mill capacity is 700 to 1,000 pounds of flour per hour. “My goal is to do 100 tons the first year then 900 the next year and 1,500 in five years. We’re going to ramp up production as fast as we can sell it. If I can’t keep up with store demand I’ll be tickled.”

 

Pricing will be similar to other specialty flours, Wrigley said. “I’m not trying to complete with Gold Medal.”

 

Through UAF Cooperative Extension Service studies, it has been found that mixing half barley flour with half wheat flour produces the best results. It’s better to mix the two because barley holds moisture. For barley flour recipes, including cornbread, brownies, banana bread, pancakes, carrot cake, cookies, crackers, muffins, noodles and pie crust, visit the Extension publications website.

 

For the future, Wrigley is considering the production of brownie, cake and pancake mixes. “We want to try different things,” he said. The flour is sold in Fairbanks at Alaska Feed and Homegrown Market and in Anchorage at the Natural Pantry.

 

One huge bonus to opening the mill has been that while the Wrigley farm hadn’t been making enough money to keep the adult children employed and they had all moved Outside, the eldest son Dallen has moved home from Idaho with his wife and four children to help with mill operations. “I’m excited to pass this farm to subsequent generations,” Wrigley beamed.

 

Contact information:

 

www.alaskaflourcompany.com

907-895-4033

[email protected]

and on Facebook

 

 

This column is provided as a service by the UAF School of Natural Resources and Agricultural Sciences and the Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station. Nancy Tarnai is the school and station’s public information officer. She can be reached at [email protected].

Theresa Bakker

907-474-6941

1/6/12

The University of Alaska Museum of the North’s new special exhibit “Leggy! Live Spiders and Their Relatives” features diverse members of the phylum Arthropoda, creatures known for their many legs and their many relatives.

These creatures are the most numerous and adaptable on the planet, says entomology curator Derek Sikes. “Five hundred million years ago, the first animals with exoskeletons and hard parts appeared during the Cambrian Explosion, probably as a result of predation. In the oceans, there are maybe 50,000 species of arthropods, about as many as there are vertebrate species today; but on land, insects have almost hit the million mark.”

The exhibit will feature live spiders, tarantulas, centipedes, scorpions and more. There will also be a darkened gallery where visitors can enter the secret world of nocturnal insects, creatures that are most active in the dark.

Videos will show arthropod behaviors, such as spiders spinning webs and beetles searching for food. A close-up lair camera will let visitors see arthropods that like to stay hidden and learn more about Earth’s true majority.

“It’s been said that if humans disappeared, nature would be unaffected,” Sikes says. “But if insects vanished, we would see the widespread collapse of most ecosystems, incredible ecological simplification and a great deal of lost biodiversity.”

“Leggy!” opens Jan. 14, 2012 in the special exhibits gallery at the museum, on the University of Alaska Fairbanks campus.

ADDITIONAL CONTACTS: Derek Sikes, UAMN curator of entomology, at 907-474-6278 or via email at [email protected].

ON THE WEB: museum.uaf.edu

TB/1-6-12/131-12

Ned Rozell
907-474-7468
1-4-12

In 1973, Elden Johnson was a young engineer with a job working on one of the most ambitious and uncertain projects in the world — an 800-mile steel pipeline that carried warm oil over frozen ground. Thirty-five years later, Johnson looked back at what he called “the greatest story ever told of man’s interaction with permafrost.”

The four-foot in diameter, half-inch-thick steel pipe had an original design lifespan of 30 years. The state of Alaska and the U.S. Department of the Interior not long ago the pipeline the green light for another 30 years of operation.

“It’s like a car,” said Johnson, who worked for Alyeska Pipeline Service Company for many years and now works for BP Exploration Alaska. “As long as you maintain it, it’ll continue to work.”

Permafrost, frozen ground that is a relic of the last ice age, exists beneath about 75 percent of the pipeline’s 800-mile route. When ice-rich permafrost thaws, the ground slumps, causing problems for structures above.

After the 1969 oil discovery at Prudhoe Bay, developers unfamiliar with Alaska wanted to bury the entire supply of Japanese-made pipe. But after a review by people who knew of the dangers of building on permafrost, a legion of workers constructed a pipeline that they buried for 380 miles and — in areas of permafrost — built above the ground on platforms for 420 miles.

The initial design was good, but not perfect, Johnson said. He remembered during construction when he and others were inspecting the ground from the Yukon River to Coldfoot, found unstable permafrost, and recommended that sections of the pipeline be re-designed. Instead of conventional buried pipeline, the engineers called for more-expensive and time-consumptive aboveground pipeline.

“We changed the design for at least 20 percent of that distance,” he said. “They were gut-wrenching decisions potentially impacting the startup schedule.”

The call to elevate more than half of the pipeline turned out to be a good one. Even though engineers bored holes in the ground about every 800 feet to check for permafrost, they didn’t find it all. When the pipeline was two years old in 1979, the pipe buckled and leaked in two buried sections because of thawed permafrost. In both cases, the pipeline, which carried oil that left the ground in Prudhoe Bay as warm as 145 degrees F, caused about four feet of settlement. Engineers fixed those and other problems, and the two leaks in 1979 are still the only spills caused by permafrost.

Alyeska Pipeline Service Co. workers check the pipeline each year for signs of settling and proper operation of the heat pipes that help keep the support posts of the above-ground pipeline anchored in frozen ground. The buried pipeline has in 31 years become more stable as the more rapid thawing of early years has settled down.

“The risk to the buried pipeline right now is becoming minimal,” Johnson said.

The pipeline has delivered more than 16 billion barrels of oil since its startup in June 1977, with two brief shutdowns due to permafrost problems.

Johnson estimated permafrost-related maintenance has totaled about 5-to-10 percent of the operating costs over the life of the pipeline. “It’s the cost of doing business in the Arctic,” he said.

This column is provided as a public service by the Geophysical Institute, University of Alaska Fairbanks, in cooperation with the UAF research community. Ned Rozell is a science writer at the institute. This column first appeared in 2008.

Marmian Grimes
907-474-7902
12/23/11
Download a PDF of the event map
The community is invited to visit the University of Alaska Fairbanks campus on New Year’s Eve for the Fairbanks Curling Lions 22nd annual Sparktacular Celebration. Fireworks will be launched from UAF’s West Ridge Saturday, Dec. 31 at 8 p.m.

University fire and police departments will provide logistical support for the event and will close roads and ski trails near the staging area at 7:30 p.m.

>Both Thompson Drive and West Tanana Drive will be open to vehicle and pedestrian traffic. The UAF Police Department is also encouraging drivers to turn right as they exit campus parking lots after the event. Visit www.uafnews.com for a complete map of open and closed areas. Watch for signs and emergency personnel on the day of the event for additional guidance.

The University of Alaska Museum of the North will serve free hot cocoa and cookies, while supplies last. The museum galleries will be open to the public at no charge from 7-9 p.m.

Alaska Railroad trains travel through the area between 7:30 and 9 p.m. Alaska Railroad officials request that spectators, both pedestrian and those on snowmachines, remain clear of the railroad tracks for safety reasons.

The Sparktacular event is organized by Mike Thomas, owner of University Chevron, and is sponsored by the following Fairbanks community groups and businesses:

• Midnight Sun Lions
• University Chevron
• NAPA Auto Parts
• Gas & Diesel Doctor
• Fairbanks Youth Sports
• Fairbanks Daily News-Miner
• Dunlap Insurance Agency
• Carl’s Jr.
• Sourdough Fuel and Petro Star
• Mt. McKinley Bank
• Tanana Valley Television Fox 7/CBS 13
• Sani-Can of Fairbanks
• Interior Towing and Salvage
• Interior NAPA AutoCare Centers
• University of Alaska Fairbanks
• The Hair’em

NOTE TO EDITORS: A downloadable map is available in JPEG format at www.uafnews.com.

NW/12-23-11/129-12

Marmian Grimes
907-474-7902
12/22/11

The family of a recent University of Alaska Fairbanks graduate has donated a tract of land that will provide an endowment to support three research and academic programs at UAF.

Dr. Jeffrey and Jo Zuckerman this week signed paperwork to donate a 50-acre parcel of land in Wilshire Glenn Estates, a subdivision off McGrath Road north of Fairbanks. Under the agreement, the land will be held by the university for three years and then can be sold. The estimated value of the land is about $960,000. The proceeds are slated to benefit two academic programs, Spanish and psychology, as well as research by faculty member Kelly Drew at the UAF Institute of Arctic Biology.

The Zuckermans’ daughter, Bianca, graduated in 2010 with a double major in Spanish and psychology and a minor in biology.  She is currently seeking a doctorate in physical therapy in Texas. She chose the programs that would receive funds generated by the donation.

“These people and programs inspired me when I was a student at UAF,” she said. “I hope that this donation will further the growth of these departments and benefit the students, the university and the community.”

UAF Chancellor Brian Rogers, university leaders and representatives from the programs met with the Zuckerman family this week.

“This gift will benefit these programs—both their students and their research—for years to come,” Rogers said. “The Zuckerman family’s dedication to higher education is an inspiration to students and to donors and we truly appreciate their generosity.”

The Zuckermans’ donation is one of the largest one-time gifts made to UAF by an individual donor.

ADDITIONAL CONTACTS:  Emily Drygas, UAF development director, at 474-6631 or [email protected].

MG/12-22-11/128-1