Big Delta
Location - Spengler Lake
The pond that Kenna DuBois and Barb Parker selected as the ALISON study site for Delta Cyber School was actually in Big Delta, about 13 miles north-northwest of Delta Junction and the school (64° 8.093' N, 145° 49.567' W). The pond has a very familiar appearance because it was obviously once a gravel pit that has flooded since excavation ceased – just like most of the ponds that we monitored at Poker Flat. Like the largest of those ponds, the longest axis of the Big Delta Pond is about 200 m and the shortest axis is about 75 m. The study site is located at the western end of the pond, well away from holes in the ice that we believe are due to melting by upwelling springwater.
As can be seen from the aerial view of the site below, the pond is shallow parallel to the road (red asterisk) and appears to drop of significantly away from the road (yellow asterisk). Unfortunately, we didn't know this until after the site was installed. See what impact this pond bathymetry had on the 2005-2006 transect.
Two aerial views of Spengler Lake. On the left, Spengler Lake can be seen in relation to the Tanana River to the north and the Delta River to the west. On the right, a closer look at Spengler Lake.
People
Kenna Dubois and Barb Parker work at the Delta Cyber School, a correspondence school run by the Delta-Greely School District. They participated in a lake ice field-trip to Poker Flat that I organized for the Alaska Math-Science Conference in October 2004. I was pleased when they contacted me in early autumn 2005 to ask if they could join ALISON.
Originally from Louisiana, Kenna has lived in Alaska since 1975. She taught in Fairbanks for the first ten years, and since 1985 she has taught in Delta Junction. Barb is originally from eastern Washington State. She has lived in Sitka and has taught in Delta Junction since 1996.
Kenna and Barb ran the study site with a group of Delta High School students who also take some classes at Delta Cyber School.
Kenna Dubois (first on right) and Barb Parker (fifth from right) made measurements with these students at the Big Delta pond in 2005-2006.
Students doing ALISON measurements at Spengler Lake during the 2006-07 ice growth and decay season.
Data
Project Details
ALISON
Alaska Lake Ice and Snow Observatory Network
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