There were many small holes on the ground. According to the guide's instructions, Han Peacock put his hand into the small hole to test it out. He could touch the water at about an arm's length.
The tour guide said that the underground here is basically in this condition, perhaps because it is located in a permafrost zone and surface water cannot easily seep down.
This is a real permafrost layer, and there must be mammoth fossils underneath. Of course, it’s not necessarily just mammoths, because changes in the earth’s crust at that time caused widespread death of mammoths, and even mammoths with huge bodies died.
, how can other creatures survive?
However, it is definitely not easy to dig out animal fossils in the permafrost. Of course, it is not that the permafrost here has not been dug before.
Here, there is an engineering miracle that was completed under such geological conditions, which is the famous Alaska Oil Pipeline.
Since the 1950s, explorers have been exploring for oil in various places in northern Alaska. Finally, in 1968, the largest oil field in North America was discovered in Prudhoe Bay on the Arctic Ocean at the northern end of Alaska. The original recoverable reserves were more than 8 billion tons.
Later, how to transport it to the mainland became a big problem.
After repeated arguments, it was finally decided to build an oil pipeline that runs through Alaska from north to south to transport crude oil to the ice-free port of Valdez on the south coast of Alaska.
The Alaska Pipeline is the world's first oil pipeline that goes deep into the Arctic Circle, with a total length of 1,286 kilometers.
Alaska's cold climate and complex geographical environment such as mountains, rivers, and permafrost pose great challenges to pipeline construction. Nearly half of the pipelines need to be constructed overhead to prevent displacement caused by melting permafrost.
The entire pipeline is under centralized control, with complete anti-seismic and pipeline protection measures. In addition to foam insulation measures, two unique technologies are also adopted.
The first is to install a heat exchanger on the pipe support to dissipate heat by convection to prevent the heat of crude oil from being transmitted to the ground through the vertical support, melting frozen soil and causing pipe settlement and damage to the pipe.
The heat exchanger uses ammonia liquid circulation with a lower freezing point, which also ensures the normal operation of the pipeline in severe cold conditions.
Second, the pipes are laid in a zigzag pattern on the ground. Since pipes are easier to move on the ground than underground, this design reserves space for the pipes to move horizontally and vertically.
In addition, the oil pipeline has also adopted effective anti-seismic measures, thus withstanding several earthquakes, including the 2002 earthquake with a magnitude of 7.9 on the Richter scale.
The oil pipeline is a single-pipe design with a diameter of 1.22 meters and is about 3 meters above the ground. Construction started in March 1974 and was completed in May 1977 at a cost of US$8 billion.
Since then, Alaska has become the largest crude oil producer in the United States after Texas. Since the oil pipeline was put into use, it has transported more than 15 billion barrels of crude oil.
According to unconfirmed rumors, the low-quality crude oil is exported to China due to serious refining pollution, high energy consumption and resource shortage, making it inevitable for others to bully it.
The road conditions next were not good, and after driving for nearly 3 hours, we finally arrived at a small town nearly 100 kilometers south of the Arctic Ocean, where the Yukon River flows through and flows into the Bering Strait.
The Yukon River is the longest river in Alaska, the third largest river in North America, and the northernmost river on Earth.
It originates from the western foothills of the Rocky Mountains in Canada, traverses the Yukon Plateau, flows northwest through Alaska and empties into the Bering Sea, with a total length of 3,185 kilometers. It is named after its origin in the Yukon region.
During the gold rush years from 1896 to 1903, Alaska was extremely isolated, and the Yukon River became the main way for gold prospectors to enter the gold mining area and transport it.
The Yukon River Basin in Alaska has left too many footprints and bones of gold mining adventurers. Many of the touching stories written by Jack London and passed down to future generations took place on the banks of the Yukon River.
Through Jack London's novels, Han Peacock was deeply impressed by the Yukon River and had the urge to get close to it. Now he finally stood on the desolate bank of the Yukon River, touched its biting water, and heard its constant flow.
I heard the sound of ancient waves and saw its figure rushing towards the sky.
Crossing the Dalton Highway Bridge over the Yukon River, one would imagine that the area where the Yukon River flows would be a wild scene, but in reality this is not the case. The hillsides along the river are covered with dense forests, and brightly colored weeds and wildflowers can be seen everywhere along the river.
Sometimes if you are lucky, you can see herds of reindeer. The spectacular scene of large herds of reindeer running across the shallows of the lake is really shocking.
However, I heard from the tour guide that such a scene was achieved by sacrificing the wolves here.
In 1992, the local government of Yukon, Canada, implemented a plan called the "Reindeer Plan" to cull a large number of wolves, allowing the reindeer that had been over-hunted by humans to rapidly reproduce.
Therefore, it is only now that reindeer are once again running in herds in the wilderness.
After driving for about two hours, we arrived near the Arctic Ocean. This was also Han Peacock’s last stop in the tour group.
The places where most mammoth fossils are unearthed are near the Arctic Circle, and the Eskimos in Alaska use ivory fossils to make house doors. I heard that there is a small island in Russian territorial waters on the coast of the Arctic Ocean, and the island is full of mammoth fossils.
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These fossils were brought out from the soil on the shore when the ice moved and accumulated on this small island.
Of course, now, with the attention being paid to mammoth tusks, the mammoth fossils in the Arctic are widely known. Now even the mammoth ivory fossils floating on the icebergs have been picked up, not to mention the mammoths exposed on the small islands.
Fossilized ivory.
Every summer, when the Arctic Circle enters its hottest season, many people venture here to search for mammoth ivory fossils.
Therefore, it is not just the Korean peacocks who want to come here to collect mammoth ivory fossils, but people with adventurous spirits and treasure-hunting ideals from all over the world come to steal mammoth ivory fossils.
After leaving the tour group, Han Kongque and others can plan their own route, and their first stop is the coast of the Arctic Ocean, where the Eskimos live.
There are magnificent natural scenery and colorful wild animals here. The mountains are undulating in a spectacular way. The clouds in the sky are like a rushing river and the winding glaciers.
Of course, the most spectacular thing should be the Northern Lights. In the northern hemisphere summer, the polar day phenomenon occurs in the Arctic Circle. However, don’t think that the Arctic, which has daylight for half a year, will not be too cold.
Most areas in the Arctic are covered with ice and snow, with 73% of the ice and snow coverage in winter and 53% in summer. The average thickness of floating ice in the Arctic Ocean is 3 meters. The permanent ice and snow in the Arctic are mainly concentrated in Greenland, with 84% of Greenland
Covered by ice and snow, the continental glaciers cover an area of 1.8 million square kilometers and the average thickness of the ice reaches 00 meters.
The winter in the Arctic region is the polar night period from November to April of the next year. The average temperature in the coldest January is - (20-40) c. The summer in the Arctic region lasts for two months, July and August, and is the polar day period.
During this period, the average temperature in August, the warmest month, was only -8°C.
The historical lowest temperature observed in Siberia is -70c, and the historical lowest temperature at the Arctic Pole is -59c.
It's almost September now, and the weather is not too warm, but it's definitely not really cold either. It can still reach above zero during the day, but at night, it's common to see more than ten degrees below zero.
They saw that the ground was wet after raining, and the sky was thick with clouds. The weather seemed to be bad, which cast a shadow on Han Peacock and their trip to the North Pole.
"You can't see the Northern Lights in this weather, right?" Huangshan breathed a sigh of relief, stamped his feet, and asked.
"There is a 30% chance!" Han Kongque said.
Mu Ling said at this time: "I heard that the Northern Lights can only be seen after September. The Northern Lights won't appear now, right?"
"No way? If you know this, we might as well come here in a few days." Jin Yao said.
"Bing Ning, what are you thinking about?" Mu Ling touched a beautiful woman next to him. She is an ice power user and is best suited for activities in cold areas, so Han Peacock brought her here this time.
Bing Ning smiled and said: "I heard that people living here can often see the Northern Lights, but it is not easy to see the beautiful Northern Lights in a large area, especially the lights in the city, which is very important for viewing the Northern Lights.
It has a big impact, so you have to go to a place without lights in the wild to see it.”
"Watching the Northern Lights in the wild. It's usually from 11pm to 3am, right? If that's the case, wouldn't you freeze to death?" Huangshan screamed in a fuss.
Han Peacock looked at them with a smile. It seemed that he had done his homework before coming here.
That's right, they couldn't easily find mammoth ivory fossils, so they had no choice but to turn their attention to other places. When they came to the Arctic Circle, they naturally wanted to see the Northern Lights.
Having just arrived here, Han Peacock did not intend to enter the wilderness on the first day, so they found a hotel to stay in the afternoon.
After an afternoon of waiting, in the evening, the moon was bright and the stars were sparse, which was considered a good weather.
At about 11 o'clock in the evening, many guests in the hotel actually gathered together, apparently going out to watch the Northern Lights, which made Han Kongque and others think about it.
In addition to Huangshan and others' suggestions from time to time, Han Kongque followed the guests in the hotel and took several jeeps to the Aurora Observation Camp.
After driving for about 30 minutes, we arrived at a campsite, in front of which was a relatively open space facing the north.
In order to facilitate viewing of the Northern Lights, some trees were cut down, and behind them were wooden houses and tents with golden roofs.
There is a stove inside the tent, which is warm, and black bear skins and snow wolf skins are hung on the walls. It feels a bit like a cottage.
After sitting down, Han Peacock also discovered that coffee and tea were prepared in this camp for free consumption.
In the open space outside the house, a blazing bonfire was burning, surrounded by wooden stools to keep the people taking photos warm.
Four ladies from Xiangjiang were in the same group as Han Peacock. They were part of a five-day tour and it was the fourth night they came to take photos of the aurora. They said that the aurora last night was the most beautiful, and the weather conditions tonight allowed them to see the aurora.