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> July 26 – Two days on Kunashir Island (part 1), or What is that bright, orange thing in the sky?!
Misty_Nikula_Ohlsen
post Jul 28 2006, 10:49 PM
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July 26 – Two days on Kunashir Island
or What is that bright, orange thing in the sky?!

***** Message from Matt Walsh at end of today’s journal *****

Wednesday, 26 July – Aboard the Gipanis, transiting south along Kunashir Island
9:30 pm


Today, when I looked out my window to see about the weather, I was nearly blinded! While the sky was not completely clear, there WAS actual sunshine and I could see more than just a thin line of coast along southern Kunashir. Our first day of sunny weather!

We had been transiting since 4 am and at breakfast were told that we were only 45 minutes away from our site – Sernovodsk, a bay near the southern end of Kunashir, where a fairly large lake drains into the Pacific. Today, we took sandwiches made from the bread, cheese and sausage that we had for breakfast in anticipation of needing food during the day.

The trip ashore on the zodiac was mostly uneventful this time. The geology team (including me – I won’t switch to working on Archaeology until we get back to the Central Kurils, about 4-5 more days) went ashore first and landed on the north end of the bay. Sernovodsk is a relatively flat area between two fairly old and no longer active volcanoes (Mendeleev and Golovnina). It is likely that the area used to be a channel or shallow waterway that filled in over time with beach sediment and/or volcanic material. It was the geologists’ job to see if we could shed any light on this idea. The archaeologists landed further south in the bay to investigate some pit house sites near the river.

We started by looking over the area from high ground to see what might be a promising area to do a horizontal profile and excavations. It was so clear that we could see across the narrow portion of Kunashir and all the way to the tall mountains on Hokkaido, the northernmost island of Japan. (See picture below – top) We could see several beach ridges between the current beachfront and an elevated road that ran parallel to the beach about 400 meters away. (See picture below – bottom) On the other side of the road, we could see a wide expanse of fairly flat marshy areas.

Jody picked out an area to do our profile that ran perpendicular to the beach and attempted to avoid the marshiest areas and those that had dense growths of bamboo plants. We split up into two teams, the diggers and the profilers. Bre, Jody and Dena moved along the profile line to the shore to begin measuring, while Beth, Jesse and I were assigned to trough areas between the ridges to dig excavations.

Today, we didn’t have to dig very deep. Since the area that we were in was not only younger, but wetter, we didn’t have to dig very far until we hit the water table – about 45 cm. This was lucky for us, because we had just finished digging the holes and describing the vertical profiles, when a Russian official on a 4-wheeler came up along the beach and started talking with Jody. Well, at least as much as a person who speaks very little Russian and one who speaks no English can have a conversation!

Turns out that he was the equivalent of a park ranger and that we were on a wetlands nature preserve! Oops. After we unsuccessfully tried to contact the other group (where all of the Russian speakers were), he drove off to find them and we carefully filled in our holes and replaced the sod that we had removed. We typically fill in all of our holes, if we have time and always in more populated areas, but this time we were extra meticulous about it.

By this time, it was almost 1 pm, so we went ahead and packed up and headed back to the beach, where we were to meet Dr. Shubin for lunch. We relaxed for a bit on the beach and took off our hip waders and socks so our sore feet could cool off a bit in the lovely sand. We watched Dr. Shubin and the archaeology group come back down to the southern end of the bay and Dr. Shubin head back to the ship on the zodiac. Lunch was on its way! A little bit later, Dr. Shubin returned from the ship – to the other end of the beach – and then began coming up the beach to us. He came ashore and we piled all of our gear and selves into the zodiac for a quick trip down the beach. Lunch included some sort of meat, yummy potatoes and my favorite – fried bread! It was a tasty treat!

After lunch, the geologist group decided that we should just head down to the where the archaeologists had dug some test pits to help them with digging, describing profiles within the test pits or any other tasks that we could lend a hand with. Beth and Bre worked on doing some peat core sampling, I helped Jody describe a profile in a test pit that Ben had dug and then I filled it back in and Jesse and Dena helped Matt, James and Mike with the screening and sampling of their test pit. When they finished with that test pit, we all helped fill it in (it was a lot bigger) and we headed back to the beach to wait for Dr. Shubin to take us back to the Gipanis.

It was such a lovely day and we were enjoying the sunshine and warmth so much that I decided to not put my rain pants back on for the trip back on the zodiac – I soon learned that this was a BIG mistake! There were several things that didn’t go well for staying dry on the trip back. First, I was in the bow of the boat so all of the splashing got me. Second, the Gipanis was much further out than usual to avoid shallows, so the trip was at least twice as long. Third, I was a bit squished by the gear, so I eventually couldn’t stay up on the side of the boat and had to sit on top of the shovels. I was being showered with seawater the entire 15-20 minute trip. My hip boots kept me dry from the thighs down and my jacket kept me dry from the waist up, but in between I was SOAKED! To top it off, when we got to the ship, the hook that the bowline is usually tied to had broken, so when I threw the bowline to the crewman on deck, I had to hold on to the other end so that the zodiac would stay against the ship while everyone else got off and the gear was unloaded. I guess it’s lucky for me, today was a good day to wash some clothes. smile.gif [Note to self – always where rain pants in the zodiac.]

Now we are on our way around the south end of Kunashir. There is a low-lying peninsula or spit that juts out about 8 km into the straight between Kunashir and Hokkaido. We are headed around this peninsula to the sheltered western side. Jody is very interested in looking for beach ridges and tsunami deposits on the peninsula and Ben will look for archaeology sites on the southern mainland part of Kunashir.

IPB Image
Image on top: The view from a high spot looking across the low-lying areas toward the lake at Sernovodsk. The mountains rising in the background are on Hokkaido Island, which is the northernmost island of Japan.
Image on the bottom: The beach ridges at Sernovodsk. In this picture you can see the active beach ridge to the far left, nearest to the shore. Then moving toward the right there are two more ridges visible, one that runs nearly through the center of the picture, starting just above the bush in the middle, and one that is just along the right edge. The areas in between are the troughs or former beach shores. Now they are marshy and a lot of peat is forming there.


Mrs. N-O

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Hello everyone, I’m still alive. We’ve been digging lots of square holes. The sunsets are spectacular and the days are even better. I have something I thought I would never get on this trip – a sunburn. I miss you all. Hope everyone is well. Cheers. –Matt
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