Frost Boils

Cory Mohn, a 2005 Arctic Region Supercomputing Center summer intern, demonstrates his 3D visualization of a frost boil in the center's Discovery Lab. Mohn traveled to a remote research station in Alaska to study the arctic phenomena, which are of particular interest to the Alaska Geobotany Center (AGC) at the University of Alaska

Fairbanks Institute of Arctic Biology.One key project of the AGC is the Biocomplexity of Patterned Ground project, funded by the National Science Foundation, which examines the role frost boils play in plant development and proliferation, and how a changing climate might impact these biological patterns. As these patterned ground formations have been little studied, they represent a still largely unknown aspect of the arctic system.

Credit: Leone Thierman, Arctic Region Supercomputing Center, University of Alaska Fairbanks