National Park Service U.S. Department of Interior Alaska Regional Office Alaska Park Science Anchorage, Alaska Connections to Natural and Cultural Resource Studies in Alaska’s National Parks Volume 3, Issue 2 Table of Contents New Frontiers, Old Fossils: Recent Dinosaur Noatak National Preserve Discoveries in Alaska National Parks ____________ 5 Gates of the Arctic Cape Krusenstern National Park and Preserve Glacier Toads and Frozen Frogs: National Monument Alaska’s Surprising Amphibian Diversity ______ 11 Kobuk Valley National Park Suqpiat of the Lower Kenai Peninsula Coast __ 17 Bering Land Bridge National Preserve Mammal Diversity: Inventories of Alaska Yukon-Charley Rivers K A National Preserve National Parks Stimulate New Perspectives ____ 23 A S Norton Sound L Managing Exit Glacier’s Popularity: A ____ Social Science Looks at Visitor Experiences 29 Denali National Park and Preserve Aniakchak Sockeye Salmon Investigations ____ 35 Wrangell-St. Elias National Park Science News________________________________ 40-43 and Preserve ISSN 1545- 4967 Klondike Gold Rush Lake Clark Historical Park National Park and Preserve Glacier Bay Kenai Fjords National Park Alaska Park Science National Park and Preserve http://www.nps.gov/akso/AKParkScience/index.htm Katmai National Park and Preserve Sitka Editor: Monica Shah Bristol Bay Historical Park Copy Editor: Thetus Smith Aniakchak Project Lead: Robert Winfree, Regional Science Advisor, National Monument email: [email protected] and Preserve Gulf of Alaska Alaska Park Science Journal Board: Ted Birkedal, Team Leader for Cultural Resources Don Callaway, Cultural Anthropologist Terry DeBruyn, Regional Wildlife Biologist Joy Geiselman, Deputy Chief, Biological Science Office USGS Alaska Science Center Alaska National Parks Russ Kucinski, Team Leader for Natural Resources John Morris, Education Coordinator John Quinley, Assistant Regional Director for Communications Jane Tranel, Public Affairs Specialist This project is made possible through funding from the Alaska Park Science is published twice a year. Recent Ralph Tingey, Associate Regional Director for Resource Protection Sara Wesser, Inventory and Monitoring Coordinator, Alaska Region National Park Foundation. Additional funding is provided issues of Alaska Park Science are available for sale by the Robert Winfree, Chair of Journal Board by the National Park Service and other contributors. Alaska Natural History Association (www.alaskanha.org). Published by Alaska Natural History Association, a nonprofit partner of Charitable donations to help support this journal the Alaska Region of the National Park Service, supporting educa- tional programs through publishing and operation of visitor center may be sent to: Alaska Natural History Association, bookstores. 750 West Second Avenue, Suite 100, Anchorage, AK 99501 Printed on recycled paper with soy based ink ATTN: Alaska Park Science. Printed in U.S.A. Cover: Reconstruction of a duck-billed dinosaur. See story page 5. NPS illustration by Kathy Lepley. 2 About the Authors Blain Anderson is a biologist and a Geographic Information Systems specialist for the Alaska Regional Office, National Park Service. Joseph Cook is a curator at the Museum of Southwestern Biology and associate professor of biology at the University of New Mexico. Natalie Dawson is a doctoral student in biology at the University of New Mexico. Anthony R. Fiorillo is a paleontologist and head of research and collections at the Dallas Museum of Natural History. Troy R. Hamon is a biologist for Katmai National Park and Preserve, Aniakchak National Monument and Preserve, and Alagnak Wild River. Darryll R. Johnson is the NPS Research Coordinator and Co-leader of the Pacific Northwest Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit, University of Washington, Seattle. Russell Kucinski is a geologist for the Alaska Regional Office, National Park Service. Stephen MacDonald is a curatorial associate at the Museum of Southwestern Biology. Robert E. Manning is a professor and Director of the Park Studies Laboratory at the University of Vermont. Joe L. Miller is a fisheries biologist for Katmai National Park and Preserve, Aniakchak National Monument and Preserve, and Alagnak Wild River. Jennifer L. Nielsen is a research fisheries biologist for the Alaska Science Center, U.S. Geological Survey, Office of Biology and Associate Graduate Faculty at the University of Alaska and Oregon State University. Scott A. Pavey is a fisheries biologist for the Alaska Science Center, U.S. Geological Survey. Amy Runck is a doctoral student in biology at Idaho State University, Pocatello. Ronald T. Stanek is a subsistence resource specialist for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. Mark E. Vande Kamp is a research associate at the Protected Area Social Research Unit, University of Washington, Seattle. Right: A carbonized upright fossil tree stump associated with the fossil footprints found in the Chignik Formation of Aniakchak National Monument. See story page 5. Photograph courtesy of Anthony Fiorillo. 3 4 Photograph cour New Frontiers, Old Fossils: Recent Dinosaur tesy of Anthony Fiorillo Discoveries in Alaska National Parks by Anthony R. Fiorillo, Russell Kucinski, Monument and Preserve and Katmai these sedimentary rock units, the Upper and Troy R. Hamon National Park and Preserve. Here we high- Cretaceous Chignik Formation contains light those discoveries that are requiring the first record of dinosaurs of any kind Introduction scientists to reevaluate their conclusions found in national parks in Alaska. Alaska is well known for its rugged about dinosaurs in Alaska during the Alaska contains many geologic terranes Figure 1. Coastal exposure of the Chignik geologic beauty and plentiful biological Jurassic and Cretaceous periods. that appear to have originated elsewhere Formation in Aniakchak National Monument. wonders. The National Park Service admin- and traveled by various movements of isters approximately 54 million acres of Aniakchak National Monument tectonic plates to their present locations. Photograph cour land in Alaska that includes some of the and Preserve Paleomagnetic analysis of the Upper most fossiliferous rocks in the state. Aniakchak National Monument and Cretaceous and Lower Tertiary rocks of Recognizing that much still needs to be Preserve, approximately 600,000 acres, is Aniakchak, however, suggests that the tesy of Anthony Fiorillo learned about the fossil resources in parks, one of the most remote, and thus least Chignik Formation was formed at approxi- the Alaska Region of the National Park visited, parks in the National Park System. mately its current latitude (Hillhouse and Service has partnered with the Dallas The park was established in 1980 because Coe 1994). Museum of Natural History, the University of the volcanic features in the region, the The Chignik Formation was named by of Alaska Museum of the North, and other most notable of which is the 6-mile (10 km) Atwood (1911) for rocks exposed in the institutions to develop a better understand- wide Aniakchak Caldera, a 2,000 feet (600 vicinity of Chignik Bay, southwest of what ing of paleontology in several Alaska parks. m) deep circular feature that is the result of is now Aniakchak National Monument. Initial results suggest that a wealth of the collapse of a magma chamber. In addi- The rock unit is a cyclic sequence of rocks Figure 2. Three-toed track attributable to a basic paleontological information is still to tion to the prominent volcanic features of representing predominately shallow to duck-billed dinosaur. be gathered in Alaska parks (Fiorillo et al. the park, there are sedimentary rocks rang- nearshore marine environments in the 2004, Fiorillo and Parrish 2004). Arguably, ing in age from the Late Jurassic Naknek lower part and predominately continental with respect to the public’s interest, the Formation to the Eocene Tolstoi Formation environments in the upper part of the Left: View of lower Ukak Falls. The rocks in the foreground represent an ancient delta most significant finds in the Alaska national (Detterman et al. 1981, Wilson et al. 1999), section (Figure 1). complex within the Naknek Formation. parks have been the discovery of dinosaur representing a period of time from approx- The age of the Chignik Formation, based Photograph courtesy of Anthony Fiorillo remains in two parks: Aniakchak National imately 150–45 million years ago. Of on the occurrence of particular fossil 5 New Frontiers, Old Fossils: Recent Dinosaur Discoveries in Alaska National Parks Photograph cour …fossil tracks, along with the more marine bivalves, ammonites, and plant fos- sils, is considered to be late Campanian to well-known dinosaur discoveries early Maastrichtian (Detterman et al. 1996, tesy of Anthony Fiorillo on the Colville River of northern Fiorillo and Parrish 2004) or roughly 77–68 million years old. The age of this sequence is Alaska, document the existence of approximately the same age as some of the an extensive high-latitude terrestrial better known dinosaur locations along the ecosystem capable of supporting Colville River of northern Alaska (Fiorillo and Parrish 2004). large-bodied herbivores. Cretaceous dinosaurs, reported for the first time from southwestern Alaska in Aniakchak as a set of footprints and hand- Such an ecosystem stretched for prints (Figures 2 and 3), are attributable to hundreds of miles over a region a duck-billed dinosaur called a hadrosaur (Figure 4) (Fiorillo 2004, Fiorillo and Parrish roughly composed of present day 2004). Fortuitously, these