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43-641: The Trail Creek Caves are a group of twelve caves found within the Bering Land Bridge National Preserve on the Seward Peninsula of the U.S. state of Alaska . This is a significant archeological site due to the discovery of several artifacts of ancient hunters. These included stone tools and bone fragments dated to 8,500 years or earlier. The caves were discovered in 1928 by Taylor Moto and Alfred Karmun, locals from Deering, Alaska . Geologist David Hopkins tested

86-555: A national preserve with the passage of the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA), which would allow both subsistence hunting by local residents and sport hunting. The preserve includes significant archaeological sites and a variety of geological features. The preserve has seen recent volcanic activity, with lava flows and lake-filled maars . Hot springs are a popular destination for tourists. The preserve lies on

129-584: A bay in the Kotzebue Sound , when it was surprised by a combination of a tidal surge and flooding in connection with a winter storm. When the tidal surge reached the herd, it broke the ice underneath it and the herd plunged into the icy water. The temperature was below –30 °C, and the whole herd was killed and frozen in the ice. Four of the animals had been fitted with radio collars, and they were found by researchers looking for their signals. In addition to their reintroduction to this national preserve,

172-468: A bunkhouse was dragged in by Alaska Road Commission workers in 1949. In 1953, the nearby village of Shishmaref received $ 53,000 in state funds to construct a public bath house. It is possible that the springs were used traditionally by Inupiat residents for cooking, for healing and spiritual purposes. Anthropologists who studied the Inupiat in the area reported local beliefs that the healing influences at

215-582: A cast bronze buckle, very likely smelted in East Asia, either Siberia or farther South. The finds were discovered adjacent to a house inhabited by the Birnirk people, the presumed ancestors of the modern Inuit. The metal objects were not locally cast, based on metallurgical analyses (X-ray fluorescence) by Purdue University Assistant Professor H. Kory Cooper. The metal was deposited at Cape Espenberg at least 500 years before sustained contact with Europeans in

258-532: A dog team and Inupiat assistants, was probably the first white man to reach the hot springs in May, 1900. McLennan may have staked a mining claim nearby but left the country by September, 1901. Another miner, John Sirene, built a cabin and maintained a garden at the springs. Miners used the area intermittently until around 1915, when prospectors built a cabin, bathhouse, and a bathing pool that was 10 to 12 feet in diameter nearby. A runway may have been constructed in 1923 and

301-445: A dominant west to northwest wind regime. Due to an abundant offshore source, sandy barrier islands front most of the northwest facing Seward Peninsula from Bering Strait into Kotzebue Sound, enclosing several extensive lagoons. The Chukchi Sea is microtidal < 50 cm, and the prevailing westerly currents maintain a series of widely spaced offshore bars that typically damp onshore wave energy. Storm surges occur with some regularity in

344-522: A fine quartzose sand is most dense on the shallow shelf north of Bering Strait and reflects a complex history. A significant amount of Yukon River sand entered the southern Chukchi Sea during the Holocene transgression, hypothetically forming and reworking a series of early Holocene barriers into a retreat massif similar to that of the mid-Atlantic. A secondary source of sand may be as a fluvial addition from south-trending paleo-Noatak and Kobuk rivers cross

387-542: A tooth excavated from Trail Creek Cave 2 in 1949. The tooth, directly dated to around 9000 BP , belonged to a young child. The young child from Trail Creek Cave 2 was found to cluster genetically with USR1 from the Upward Sun River site in a hypothesized ancient DNA population grouping referred to as Ancient Beringian . As with USR2 from the Upward Sun River site, the child from Trail Creek Cave 2

430-448: Is concentrated in the storm beach and within the mouths of surge channels that cross cut the beach ridges. The wood, mostly spruce (Picea spp. ) is transported from the forested Yukon River drainage; cottonwood and birch are rare. Current reversals, resulting from easterly winds, lead to beach erosion , and are often coupled with the deposition of starfish and of eel grass from the enclosed lagoon. Lying wholly within tundra, dune formation

473-535: Is furthered along the Espenberg beach by the winter drying of beach sand, onshore winds in late spring, and the dominance of sand-burial tolerant beach grass (Elymus spp.). High dunes correlate with heightened storm events during the Little Ice Age and contain evidence of shell beds emplaced during storm surges. Intense storms produced erosional truncations across the spit between 1000 BC and AD 200 and during

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516-564: Is moderated by the coastal location, but temperatures can reach −65 °F (−54 °C) in winter and typical low temperatures in winter are −10 °F (−23 °C) to −20 °F (−29 °C). Summer temperatures average about 50 °F (10 °C). The average annual temperature is 21 °F (−6 °C). An entire herd of 55 muskoxen died in a storm surge in the National Reserve in February 2011. The herd had been crossing

559-478: Is onshore and progradational, in the short term, storms and transient current reversals lead to offshore transport and erosion of Espenberg beaches. Locally, beaches have witnessed significant width and depth reductions in the last five years; current reversals are also possibly more common. A variety of clastic additions are common on the beach; these include the bones of Pleistocene megafauna (mostly horse, bison or mammoth), modern and ancient shell valves. Drift wood

602-457: Is the presence of hot springs. The Serpentine Hot Springs produce water at a temperature of 140 °F (60 °C) to 170 °F (77 °C), and have been used for millennia by local people. Granite tors are another volcanic remnant, formed underground and exposed by erosion. Bering Land Bridge has the four largest and northernmost maar lakes in the world at Espenberg , formed by phreatomagmatic eruptions leaving round craters. The ages of

645-521: Is the small Goodhope Bay , an inlet of the Kotzebue Sound . Named in 1816 by Lt. Otto von Kotzebue (1821, p. 236) for Dr. Karl Espenberg, a surgeon who accompanied Captain (later Admiral, IRN) Adam Johann von Krusenstern on his voyage around the world in 1803–06. Cape Espenberg lies on the Arctic Circle at the terminus of a 30 km long mainland attached beach ridge plain at the northern limit of Seward Peninsula, in western Alaska. At

688-718: The Antiquities Act . Carter took the action after the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA) was held up in Congress. In 1980 ANILCA was passed, and was signed into law by Carter on 2 December 1980, converting the monument into a national preserve . The preserve's headquarters are in the Sitnasuak Building in Nome . Cape Espenberg Cape Espenberg points northwards, 42 mi NW of Deering, Kotzebue-Kobuk Low. On its southeastern side there

731-653: The Lost Jim Lava Flow . The Seward Peninsula is a remnant of the Beringia subcontinent that linked Alaska and Siberia during periods of low sea levels during ice ages . The region was mostly untouched by glaciers during the ice age. The preserve lands can be described by five physiographic zones: the northern coastal plan, the rolling stream-dissected uplands, the Imuruk lava plateau, the Kuzitrin flats, and

774-565: The 1950s when J.Louis Giddings visited the Cape. Research by the National Park Service has included survey by Jeanne Schaaf in 1986 and excavations led by Roger Harritt in 1988 and 1989. The Espenberg dunes contain small sites as well as extensive villages with dozens of house depressions. The cultural chronology of the Cape is constructed on the basis of >120 radiocarbon ages. Since 2007, several research projects were funded by

817-539: The Bendeleben Mountains. The Seward Peninsula is primarily composed of metamorphic blueschist , with deposits of sand, gravel, silt, loess and a few glacier-deposited moraines . The area around Cape Espenberg includes a series of relict beach ridges like those found farther north at Cape Krusenstern . These deposits are found mainly in the coastal plain, where they form a system of lagoons and barrier bars or spits. The rolling uplands lie inland and to

860-788: The Bering Land Bridge National Preserve. The springs are also referred to as Iyat, the Inupiaq word for cooking pot. Serpentine Hot Springs is on the northern part of the Seward Peninsula at 65°51′N, 164°43′W. The springs are situated on the right bank of Hot Springs Creek which flows to the Serpentine River, 47 miles NW of Imuruk Lake . Serpentine Hot Springs was originally described by Arthur J. Collier in U.S. Geological Survey Bulletin (1902). Collier noted that Charles McLennan, who with

903-413: The Birnirk, Western Thule and Kotzebue Period cultures. This series of cultures spanned the period from 600 AD to the early 1800s, when traditional lifestyles were disrupted by the arrival of Europeans in the area. The fur trade, whaling and missionary activities changed the local economy, which was further altered in the late 19th century by the arrival of prospectors looking for gold on the southern side of

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946-742: The Ikpek Lagoon section to the main preserve. The interior portions extend to and across the Continental Divide as far as the Bendeleben Mountains . The region around the continental divide includes volcanic areas such as Serpentine Hot Springs and lava fields between the Noxapaga River and the Kuzitrin River . The preserve's high point is Mount Boyan on the south border. There are no roads into

989-512: The Little Ice Age. The beach featured lies about 1 km Northwest from the navigational light at the Cape and can be considered unaffected by human processes, since the National Park Service restricts the use of motor vehicles and the region is nearly uninhabited. The closest settlement is ca. 10 km away and consists only of several cabins used seasonally by Inupiat hunters and fishers. Over 4,000 years of prehistory are revealed at Cape Espenberg, as documented by archaeological surveys since

1032-494: The National Science Foundation, led by John F. Hoffecker, Owen K. Mason and Claire M. Alix. The dunes contain a remarkable record of architectural history and cultural change in relation to climate change. The earliest occupations at the Cape ca. 2500 calibrated BCE record the first maritime adaptions along the north Alaska coast. In 2011, archaeologists found metal artifacts at Cape Espenberg, including

1075-516: The Seward Peninsula. Prospectors spread out across the peninsula, with hydraulic mining undertaken in the Pinnel River in the preserve. The Seward Peninsula saw a further influx of outsiders during World War II, since Alaska was an important theater of the Pacific war. Bering Land Bridge National Monument was established 1 December 1978, by President Jimmy Carter using his authority under

1118-648: The Trail Creek Caves, Kuzitrin Lake and Agulaak Island. The Denbigh culture was followed by the Choris culture, which brought pottery and ground stone tools. Cape Espenberg, the Trail Creek Caves and the region around Lopp Lagoon were occupied during this time. This was followed by the Ipuitak culture from about 1900 BC to 1000 BC, at many of the same locations. The Northern Maritime tradition followed, comprising

1161-710: The United States , located on the Seward Peninsula . The National Preserve protects a remnant of the Bering Land Bridge that connected Asia with North America more than 13,000 years ago during the Pleistocene ice age . The majority of this land bridge now lies beneath the waters of the Chukchi and Bering Seas . During the glacial epoch this bridge was a migration route for people, animals, and plants whenever ocean levels fell enough to expose

1204-584: The earliest undisputed evidence of human occupation are relics of the Paleo-Arctic tradition found in the Trail Creek Caves and dating to between 10,000 and 7,000 BC. Archaeological evidence suggests a gap in human occupation on the peninsula until about 4200 BC. Materials from the period 4000 to about 2000 BC, known as the Denbigh culture of the Arctic small tool tradition , have been found at Cape Espenberg,

1247-473: The entry of the shallow Kotzebue Sound embayment, Cape Espenberg faces a potential open water fetch of 1000 km across the Chukchi Sea, an impact that is restricted by a perennial ice cover decreasing in duration the last 10 years. Cape Espenberg, located 40 km east of a pronounced easterly deflection in the coast, is the depositional sink of a 200 km long littoral transport system fostered by

1290-421: The exposed subcontinent of Beringia, and reworked into Pleistocene dunes during lower sea levels. The dark medium sand reflects updrift bluff erosion of a tephraeous maar eruption about 17,000 years ago. Sand supply is maintained by onshore transport during a five-month open water period from June to November. Although in the long-term, as established by geological 14C ages, over the last 4000 years, sand transport

1333-426: The fall, with the extreme events, attaining a maximum elevation of 3 to 4 meter. The beach is extremely planar and composed of comparatively well-sorted fine and medium sand, with a few stray cobbles of uncertain but probable ice-rafted origin. Dunes occur in the back beach, stabilized by grass, attaining a height of ca. 4 m. The sand is considered by geologists to reflect multiple sources. Its most common constituent,

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1376-415: The hot springs site was very strong. Most of the land in the preserve is tundra , underlain by permafrost. The tundra supports a variety of low and slow-growing plants. The landscape is dominated by grasses and sedges, such as cottongrass . Large trees cannot survive on the tundra. Tree species are limited to dwarf species like Arctic willow , Alaska willow and dwarf birch . Berry-bearing plants in

1419-458: The lakes range from 100,000–200,000 years at Whitefish Maar, to 50,000 years at North Killeak Maar, 40,000 years at South Killeak Maar, and 17,500 years at Devil Mountain Maar. The action of ice and permafrost produces features such as polygonal ice wedges and pingos . Serpentine Hot Springs, ( Inupiaq :  Iyat or Uunaatuq ), previously known as Arctic Hot Springs, is located in

1462-456: The land bridge. Archeologists disagree whether it was across this Bering Land Bridge , also called Beringia , that humans first migrated from Asia to populate the Americas, or whether it was via a coastal route . Bering Land Bridge National Monument was established in 1978 by Presidential proclamation under the authority of the Antiquities Act . The designation was modified in 1980 to

1505-1058: The native caribou, Siberian tundra reindeer ( Rangifer tarandus sibiricus ) were introduced in 1894, reaching a peak population of 600,000 animals in the 1930s. The herd has since been reduced to about 4,000. The Reindeer Act of 1937 prohibited ownership by non-Native Americans, and the reduced herds were managed by natives from that time onward. Other mammals in the preserve are walruses , polar bears , red foxes , brown bears , Arctic foxes , ribbon seals , wolverines and beavers . Significant nesting bird species include sandhill cranes and yellow-billed loons . The Seward Peninsula's rivers and streams are habitat for freshwater fish and for anadromous salmon species. The principal salmon species are chinook , coho , sockeye , chum and pink salmon. Other salmonids such as Dolly Varden trout and Arctic grayling remain in freshwater throughout their life cycle. The preserve also harbors northern pike and other fish. The preserve has weather typical of northwestern Alaska, with long cold winters. Weather

1548-549: The northern side of the Seward Peninsula , with 2,697,391 acres (1,091,595 ha). The preserve extends along the coast from a point to the west of Deering along Goodhope Bay to Cape Espenberg , then westward along the shore of the Chukchi Sea . The boundary moves inland to avoid the village of Shishmaref and the Shishmaref Inlet , then rejoins the coast to include Ikpek Lagoon . A narrow corridor connects

1591-434: The preserve features a variety of wildflowers, including Alpine Arnica , fireweed , Kamchatka rhododendron , Labrador tea , monkshood , one-flowered cinquefoil , harebell and alpine forget-me-not . Caribou are survivors of the ice age environment in the preserve, together with reintroduced muskoxen . The muskoxen were reintroduced to the area in 1970, after being wiped out in the early 20th century. In addition to

1634-423: The preserve include bog blueberry , crowberry , low-bush cranberry and cloudberry or salmonberry . Lichens are found in rocky areas, including Cetraria , Cladina , Cladonia , Xanthoria and Umbilicaria genera. Mosses and liverworts in the preserve include Sphagnum peat mosses, Aulacomnium bog mosses, Dicranum forked mosses, Polytrichum haircap mosses and Rhizomnium . In spring

1677-547: The preserve. Access to the preserve is by bush planes or boats during summer months and by ski planes, snowmobiles or dog sleds during the winter. Bering Land Bridge National Preserve contains several sites of geological and prehistorical significance. Serpentine Hot Springs is the preserve's most visited location. Other notable locations in the preserve include the Trail Creek Caves , Devil Mountain Lakes , and

1720-605: The remaining population of muskoxen are currently in Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve as well as a local farm in Palmer which has been existing since the mid-1950s. The Seward Peninsula, as part of Beringia, was a path for the migration of Asian peoples into the Americas. The earliest artifacts found in the area are modified animal bones dating to about 13,000 BC. These are not considered definitive, and

1763-487: The site in 1948. This location was first excavated in from 1949-1950 by Danish archeologist Helge Larsen . The caves are located along Trail Creek 65°47′28″N 163°24′58″W  /  65.79111°N 163.41611°W  / 65.79111; -163.41611 near its mouth at Cottonwood Creek in the Northwest Arctic Borough . In 2018, researchers sequenced the genome to around .4 coverage from

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1806-593: The south of the coastal plain. The Serpentine Hot Springs and Trail Creek Caves are in this region of limestone, marble and other minerals. Volcanic activity in the interior has left areas of basalt on the Imuruk lava plateau. The volcanic activity has been recent: the Lost Jim lava flow is estimated to be only 1,000 to 2,000 years old, produced from around 75 vents. The largest vent is the Lost Jim Cone, about 75 feet (23 m) high. One remnant of volcanism

1849-434: Was also found to carry a basal lineage of Haplogroup B2 ; this specific mtDNA lineage is different from the derived B2 lineage generally found in the Americas. This article about a location in the Northwest Arctic Borough, Alaska is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Bering Land Bridge National Preserve The Bering Land Bridge National Preserve is one of the most remote Protected areas of

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