Drilling into permafrost on Alaska's Arctic coast

On remote Barter Island, Alaska, Bruce Richmond (right) and Cordell Johnson drill into 500-foot-thick permafrost using a handheld drill with a 2-inch drill bit—a challenging task! It can take 3 hours to drill nearly 20 feet down. They collect samples of the frozen ground to better understand how climate change is affecting permafrost thaw on Alaska’s Arctic coast.