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> Always Look at Something Again, For the First Time, Images During Flight to/from Fairbanks
Steve_Marshall
post May 17 2005, 12:23 PM
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Even on the flight to and from Fairbanks for our orientation, I was answering the question, “What can I use this for?”. Never miss an opportunity to learn or experience something. While I was flying on the plane, I was wondering why I was only one of a handful of people who bothered to look out the window at everything there was to see. Even then, I think I may have been the only one who had my eyes staring out the window for most of the flight. It’s true that I’m not a major frequent flyer, so maybe that was part of the reason, but I still find it hard to believe I would not always be looking out the window even if I was. There’s always so much to see, so much to take in that even if you flew the same path hundreds of times, there should always be something to see that was missed before, or something different that wasn’t there the last time. It’s sort of like the ocean. I’ve either gone to the beach, or lived near the beach, most of my life. Most people would think the ocean would just look all the same after awhile if you saw it all the time. For me, it’s the opposite; the more I look at it, the better I get at picking out little differences—The shape of the waves, the height of the waves, the way the water looks, the change in the beach, the position of the offshore sandbars, and so on. It’s the same with flying; just keep looking and you’ll see more and learn more, but often we don’t keep looking.

After our orientation meeting and while waiting for the flight home, I was talking to one of the other TREC teachers, Bob Oddo (check out his project and journal entries at http://archive.arcus.org/trec/2005expeditions/...ct_svalbard.php and http://archive.arcus.org/TREC/VBC/index.php?showforum=16 ). Bob had mentioned he had heard or read a statistic that on average, Alaskans fly more than anyone else in the United States (or world?). Maybe that explains why many, if they were Alaskans, were not looking out the window. But I know there were also many other non-Alaskans not looking out either. Why miss that opportunity doing things like reading magazines, listening to music, playing video games, when those things can be done almost all the time? You’re literally missing the world go by without experiencing it.

Related to science or any other field, another thing to think about is that many discoveries are, or were, made by looking at the ordinary with an unordinary perspective. Important observations were made only after looking at something over and over again. One good example is Alfred Wegener. How many times have you looked at a globe or map of the world and just kind of nodded your head and said indifferently, “Yep, there it is?” Well, Wegener probably looked at it hundreds of times too before he took a different perspective and noticed the shape of the continents. It was with that different point of view that he came up with the idea of continental drift, part of the theory of plate tectonics which is one of the most important and unifying theories in geology. Speaking of geology, that was what I observed most on my flights. It was so cool to see so many different landforms that my students and I have talked about in Earth Science class, and especially to see things like glaciers that I had never seen before. It’s one thing to talk about something and look at pictures in a textbook, but it’s so much more exciting and real when the pictures are of things you’ve seen for real, and there’s a story that can be told about it from personal experience!

What follows for the rest of this journal entry is a series of pictures I took while flying to or from Fairbanks. Because there was so much too see, I took lots of pictures (all of which can be seen in the picture gallery), but I’ll put here those I found to be especially interesting, or those that relate to something I’ve talked about in my class. I’ll give a brief description of each picture, and then ask a few of the questions about some of them to let you know what I was thinking about. Some of the questions I know the answers to, but others I don’t because I’m learning something new just like anyone who is reading this may be. Maybe some of you can help me with the answers.

What I hope is conveyed by these pictures is the point that no matter how many times you have seen something, or no matter how ordinary something appears, don’t ever stop looking at it in new ways. Don’t ever stop asking questions. Always look at everything again….as if it was for the first time.

Leaving on a Jet Plane
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This is just after takeoff from the Fairbanks airport, heading home after the orientation meeting. The river in the picture is the Chena.

Tanana River, Fairbanks
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This is the Tanana River on the south side of Fairbanks. It looks to me like a classic braided-stream pattern. What causes a braided stream? What causes the channels to weave back and forth? If Fairbanks is a relatively flat area, what is the source of all the sediment?

Point Bars
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This image, about 6 minutes into the flight from Fairbanks, shows a river with some well-developed point bars. What is a point bar? Why do they form?

Point Bars and Oxbow Lakes
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In addition to point bars, this stream also has some oxbow lakes associated with it. How do oxbow lakes form?

Approaching the Alaskan Range?
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This was the first set of mountains flown over shortly after leaving Fairbanks and headed to Seattle. This was about 8 minutes into the flight, so those familiar with the flight might be able to answer whether these are just considered foothills, or are part of the Alaska Range.

Over the Hill
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This picture shows a river thats definitely in the "old" stage of development. What are the characterisitcs of an "old" stream?

WOW!!
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OK, maybe I'm strange, but this picture just takes my breath away! This is a wider shot of the stream in the "Over the Hill" picture. Not only does it show the extreme meanders, but it shows great examples of oxbow lakes and meander scars. What are meander scars? If this image isn't in a textbook already, it should be!

Wide Ranging Mountains
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15 minutes into the Fairbanks-Seattle flight, I think this is definitely part of the Alaska Range, and the picture gives and idea of how far-reaching this range is.

Erosion in Action
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Zooming in a little closer to the mountains shown in the "Wide Ranging Mountains" picture, you can see a classic drainage pattern created in mountainous areas. What drainage pattern is this? We're obviously higher up in elevation, so is the white color of those streams caused by frozen water or rapids?

OK, the website is yelling at me about posting too many pictures here, so let me see if I can continue this on another topic. I know the gallery has these too, but I think it's easier to see them all in a row.
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Janet_Warburton
post May 17 2005, 10:36 PM
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Great pictures and journal entry Steve!

I'm one of those people that also stares out the window every time I fly. I'm always amazed at what this planet looks like from the air. I especially like flying in the evening or at night. I like watching the sun set as you move from East to West or North to South. When I fly to the "lower 48", a term Alaskans have for anyone living south of them in the U.S., I'm always dazzled by the city lights and the roads that look like glowing ant trails. When I travel back to Alaska - I'm always amazed at how few lights there are between places and how far it is until you see the next "community" of lights. I like to guess what community we are flying over, thinking that with nothing else around them, they have electricity. With just one "flip of a switch"; they have signaled their presence on the plant thus connecting them with every place else.

Thanks again for the photos - they remind me of why I'm here in Alaska.
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Steve_Marshall
post May 18 2005, 12:51 AM
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QUOTE(Janet_Warburton @ May 17 2005, 10:36 PM)
Great pictures and journal entry Steve! 

... I like watching the sun set as you move from East to West or North to South.  When I fly to the "lower 48", a term Alaskans have for anyone living south of them in the U.S., I'm always dazzled by the city lights and the roads that look like glowing ant trails.  When I travel back to Alaska - I'm always amazed at how few lights there are between places and how far it is until you see the next "community" of lights.... 

Thanks again for the photos - they remind me of why I'm here in Alaska.
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Thanks and you're welcome, Janet.
It's funny; Those things you mentioned were exactly some of the other things I was thinking on the flight also. Even though the days were getting much longer by the time of year of our flight, we were lucky enough (if you call getting into Fairbanks at 1:00am lucky!) to be flying at night. I was thinking exactly the same thing when we were flying over Alaska in the dark about how much land we covered before seeing any lights. Then I'd see a lone light in the middle of nowhere and I'd just keep wondering to myself where the light was coming from and what was the story behind it. Not having been to Alaska before, it was an even harder guessing game for me to figure out what we might be flying over.

It was also amazing to see the horizon start to brighten again. It wasn't because we were traveling for so long a time that it was morning, but it was that we were chasing the sun and flying further north so that we were getting closer to the illuminated side of the Earth at 1:00 am! The city lights (flying back to Seattle) got my attention too. I did take some pictures of that, but the movement of the plane, and maybe my camera not set right, made the lights all out of focus, so that will just have to be a picture I keep in my memory.
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