Alaska Science Center
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The Alaska Science Center provides objective and timely data, information, and research findings about the earth and its flora and fauna to Federal, State, and local resource managers and the public to support sound decisions regarding natural resources, natural hazards, and ecosystems in Alaska and circumpolar regions.
Seminar Series
As Alaska warms, its land ice is disappearing, at rates among the highest on Earth. Myriad downstream impacts stem from ice removal, with feedbacks among processes challenging our understanding of future states.
View Jan. SeminarCurrent Water Conditions
Explore real-time Alaska streamflow, groundwater, and water-quality conditions and access data with our new interactive map application.
View current conditionsNews
The Other 364 Days of the Year: The Real Lives of Wild Reindeer
Caribou, North America’s wild reindeer, have lives apart from their famous role on Christmas Eve. To learn more about how these Arctic antler-bearers spend the other 364 days of the year, we talked to USGS caribou expert Dr. Layne Adams, who has studied these animals for more than 35 years.
USGS Alaska Science Center Develops New 5-year Arctic Research Plan
The USGS Alaska Science Center is now embarking on the next 5-year (FY2020 – 2024) research plan of the Changing Arctic Ecosystems Initiative.
USGS Hazard Science – Understanding the Risks is Key to Preparedness
Learn About USGS Hazards Science and More About National Preparedness Month: The very nature of natural hazards means that they have the potential to impact a majority of Americans every year. USGS science provides part of the foundation for emergency preparedness whenever and wherever disaster strikes.
Publications
Catalogue of polar bear (Ursus maritimus) maternal den locations in the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas and nearby areas, 1910–2018
This report presents data on the approximate locations and methods of discovery of 530 polar bear (Ursus maritimus) maternal dens observed in the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas and neighboring areas from 1910 to 2018, and archived partly by the U.S. Geological Survey, Alaska Science Center, and partly by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Marine...
Durner, George M.; Amstrup, Steven C.; Atwood, Todd C.; Douglas, David C.; Fischbach, Anthony S.; Olson, Jay W.; Rode, Karyn D.; Wilson, Ryan R.
The clock keeps ticking: Circadian rhythms of free-ranging polar bears
Life in the Arctic presents organisms with multiple challenges including extreme photic conditions, cold temperatures, and annual loss and daily movement of sea ice. Polar bears (Ursus maritimus) evolved under these unique conditions where they rely on ice to hunt their main prey, seals. However, very little is known regarding the dynamics of...
Ware, Jasmine V.; Rode, Karyn D.; Robbins, Charles T.; Leise, T.; Weil, C.R.; Jansen, Heiko T. Extreme mortality and reproductive failure of common murres resulting from the northeast Pacific marine heatwave of 2014-2016
About 62,000 dead or dying common murres (Uria aalge), the trophically dominant fish-eating seabird of the North Pacific, washed ashore between summer 2015 and spring 2016 on beaches from California to Alaska. Most birds were severely emaciated and, so far, no evidence for anything other than starvation was found to explain this mass mortality....
Piatt, John F.; Parrish, Julia K.; Renner, Heather M.; Schoen, Sarah K.; Jones, Timothy; Arimitsu, Mayumi L.; Kuletz, Kathy J.; Bodenstein, Barbara; Garcia-Reyes, Marisol; Duerr, Rebecca; Corcoran, Robin; Kaler, Robb S.A.; McChesney, Gerard J.; Golightly, Richard T.; Coletti, Heather A.; Suryan, Robert M.; Burgess, Hillary K.; Lindsey, Jackie; Lindquist, Kirsten; Warzybok, Peter; Jahncke, Jaime; Roletto, Jan; Sydeman, William J.