Cumulative Environmental Effects of Oil and Gas Activities on Alaska's North Slope (2003) / Chapter Skim
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3. The Alaska North Slope Environment
3. The Alaska North Slope Environment
Pages 24-31
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From page 24... ...
To the south, that trough is bounded by the overthrust front of the Brooks Range. To the north, it is bounded by, and separated from, the Canada Basin of the Beaufort Sea by a buried ridge of older rocks, a composite structural feature commonly called the Barrow Arch.
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From page 25... ...
To maintain permafrost in its natural frozen condition and to avoid destructive surface settlement, roads, and work areas must be built on thick gravel foundations, heated buildings and pipelines must be elevated on piling, and off-site activities must be carefully controlled. Surficial Geomorphic Features The North Slope has three distinct regions: the Arctic Coastal Plain, the Arctic Foothills, and the Brooks Range (Gallant et al.
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From page 26... ...
FRESHWATER ENVIRONMENTS Rivers and Streams Several types of streams are found north of the Brooks Range (Craig and McCart 1975~. Mountain streams, such as the Colville, Sagavanirktok, Ivishak, and Canning rivers, which originate in the Brooks Range, are the largest river systems that cross the Arctic Coastal Plain.
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From page 27... ...
1975, USACE 1998~. The Chukchi Sea receives water flowing northward through the Bering Strait, driven by the half-meter drop in sea level between the Aleutian Basin of the Bering Sea and the Arctic Ocean (Overland and Roach 1987~.
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From page 28... ...
with tussock TABLE 3-1 Area, Percentage Cover of Land-Cover Classes CUMULATIVE EFFECTS OF ALASKA NORTH SLOPE OIL AND GAS cottongrass, abundant shrubs, and mosses. The Arctic Coastal Plain's wetlands are an intricate mosaic of wet, moist, and aquatic vegetation types.
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From page 29... ...
Much of the Arctic Foothills and a large sandy area west of the Colville River on the coastal plain have acidic, nutrient-poor soils that support tussock-tundra vegetation types dominated by tussock cottongrass, dwarf shrubs, and mosses (Units 3 and 4~. Those vegetation types generally have few plant species that have low nutrient concentrations and high concentrations of anti-herbivore protective chemical compounds.
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From page 30... ...
Herbivores are the food resource for an array of carnivores that spend part or all of the year on the North Slope. The mammalian carnivores of the Arctic Coastal Plainwolf, arctic fox, and ermine are active year-round.
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From page 31... ...
Light is the major factor that controls the distribution, development, and abundance of those assemblages (Dunton 1984, Homer and Schrader 1982~. Epontic algae are estimated to contribute 5% of the annual total primary production in nearshore Beaufort Sea coastal waters (Schell and Homer 1981~.
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