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The dominant landscape process on the Arctic Coastal Plain of northern Alaska is the formation and drainage of thaw lakes. Lakes and drained thaw-lake basins account for approximately 75% of the modern surface expression of the Barrow Peninsula. The thaw-lake cycle usually obliterates lacustrine or peat sediments from previous cycles, which could otherwise be used for paleoecological reconstruction of long-term landscape and vegetation changes. Several possible erosional remnants of a former topographic surface that predates the formation of the thaw lakes have been tentatively identified. These remnants are characterized by a higher elevation, a thick organic layer with very high ground ice content in the upper permafrost and a plant community somewhat atypical of the region. Ten soil cores were collected from one site, and one core was intensively sampled for soil organic carbon content, pollen analysis and 14C dating. The lowest level of the organic sediments represents the earliest phase of plant growth and dates to ca. 9000 cal BP. Palynological evidence indicates the presence of mesic shrub tundra (including sedge, birch, willow and heath vegetation), and microfossil indicators point to wetter eutrophic conditions during this period. Carbon accumulation was rapid due to high net primary productivity in a relatively nutrient-rich environment. These results are interpreted as the local response to ameliorating climate during the early Holocene. The middle Holocene portion of the record contains an unconformity, indicating that between 8200 and 4200 cal BP sediments were eroded from the site, presumably in response to wind activity during a drier period centered around 4500 cal BP. The modern vegetation community of the erosional remnant was established after 4200 cal BP and peat growth resumed. During the late Holocene, carbon accumulation rates (CARs) were greatly reduced in response to the combined effects of declining productivity associated with climatic cooling, and increased nutrient stress as paludification and permafrost aggradation sequestered mineral nutrients.

Ice cores removed from shallow ice-covered tundra lakes near Barrow, Alaska, and taiga lakes near Anchorage, Alaska, exhibit increasing concentrations of methane with depth. Methane concentrations in the ice cores increased from 0 μM in the top 15 cm sections to a maximum of 23 μM in the lowest 15 cm sections of tundra lake ice and to a maximum of 147 μM in taiga lake ice. Methane concentrations in the water beneath the ice reflect a similar pattern, with values near 5 μM early in the ice-covered season, increasing up to 42 μM in the tundra lakes, and up to 730 μM in the taiga lakes. Methane levels increase in the water beneath the ice during the course of the winter due to decreasing water volume, exclusion from growing ice, and continued methane production in thawed sediments. Since the ice layer prohibits gas exchange with the atmosphere, the methane is not oxidized, as it would be during the summer months, allowing the winter accumulation and storage of methane in the ice and lake waters. Efflux measurements, taken with floating chambers on the taiga lakes, indicated a large pulse of methane released during the period of ice melt and spring turnover. The efflux from one lake ranged from 2.07 g CH4 m−2 in 1995 to 1.49 g CH4 m−2 in 1996 for the 10 day period immediately after ice melt. Estimation of methane efflux using a boundary layer diffusion model and surface water concentrations during the entire ice-free period in 1996 predicted an efflux of 1.79 g CH4 m−2 during the same 10 day period, compared with 2.28 g CH4 m−2 for the remainder of the summer season. This observation suggests that almost as much methane efflux can occur during a brief period immediately after ice melt as occurs during the remainder of the ice-free season. Since measurements of methane efflux from high-latitude-lakes are generally made after this breakup period, the overall contribution to atmospheric methane from high-latitude lakes may be twice that of current estimates.

Modern and fossil pollen analyses have established the local vegetation succession and landscape evolution along the Meade River near Atqasuk, Alaska. Three data sets were analyzed: (1) a 142-cm-long peat deposit on the exposed river bluff face, (2) a short, 13-cm peat monolith from the near-surface sediment, and (3) a modern data set of surface samples collected along a transect representative of a geomorphic gradient of low-center, transitional, and high-center polygons. Pollen-microfossil assemblages changed significantly along this gradient. Detailed analysis of the short pollen profile shows successional vegetation changes over the last 250 years. The long profile, a 9400-year record of past vegetation, indicates that initially, the site was covered by shallow lakes. Eolian activity had a substantial effect on sediment deposition, but a period of rapid peat growth from 8500 to 5000 14C year B.P. is coincident with increased vegetation cover of mixed grass-shrub tundra. Following this period, peat growth slowed, and shrub vegetation was replaced by tussock-forming sedge vegetation.