Field Notes: Groundwater methane

This summer, INE Water and Environmental Research Center researcher Katey Walter Anthony and postdoc Teresa Augirrezabala have sampled groundwater inputs to Big Trail Lake, a thermokarst lake formed in valley-bottom permafrost in interior Alaska.

Groundwater has been shown to be an important methane source to glacial lakes near Toolik Field Station and peatland lakes on the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta.

In a collaboration with Andrew Mullen (Woodwell Climate Research Center), Anthony and Augirrezabala are investigating the importance of groundwater to interior Alaska yedoma lakes, where lake-atmosphere methane exchange is significantly higher.

Image top: Andrew Mullen is installing a groundwater sipper at Big Trail Lake. UAF/INE photo by Katey Walter Anthony.