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The melting of permafrost in the Arctic could result in toxic mercury leaching into the waters of Alaskan rivers, putting millions of people at risk. This "giant mercury bomb" lurks within the soils ...

The frozen ground beneath our feet holds secrets from thousands of years past. These permanently frozen soils, known as permafrost, cover nearly a quarter of the Northern Hemisphere's land surface.

A research team conducted perhaps the first long-term observation of CO2 budget in a permafrost forest. During the 20 years from 2003-2022, the team uncovered intriguing findings in the interior of ...

There could be something big lurking in the Earth's permafrost. As the planet continues to warm, scientists fear a host of deadly diseases will be unleashed from the frozen earth, after lying dormant ...

Picture a deep freezer suddenly failing on a hot summer day. What happens to everything inside? Now imagine that freezer is the size of Alaska, has been running for thousands of years, and contains ...

New ways to measure thawing permafrost could help us understand its potential impacts on infrastructure, military outposts, and communities. Something is rotten in the city of Nunapitchuk. In recent ...

Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. I write about biodiversity and the hidden quirks of the natural world. Beneath the Arctic tundra lies a biological time capsule of ...

The tower installed in a black spruce forest on permafrost in Fairbanks, Alaska, monitors CO 2 exchange and environmental conditions in 30-minute intervals. In perhaps the first long-term study of CO ...