The staff at GeoSpatial Services kept busy this summer, with 11 different field trips to various states. The season kicked off in April, with Andy Robertson, Zack Ansell, and Josh Balsiger spending a week in southeast Nevada, covering over 2,000 miles to visit 111 wetland sites. That same month, Andy Robertson and Kevin Benck visited the Fort Berthold Reservation in North Dakota to meet with the Three Affiliated Tribes (TAT) about an ongoing wetland mapping and assessment project. In May, Andy Robertson, Kevin Stark, and Eric Lindquist travelled to the Alaska Peninsula and Kodiak Island to explore wetlands in the area affected by the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill. Due to the remote and rugged nature of the coast, the majority of work had to be conducted by boat or helicopter.
In June, Nick Lemcke, Jeff Knopf, and Darren Omoth conducted wetland fieldwork in north central North Dakota, including portions of the Turtle Mountains. When this study area is complete, GSS will have mapped wetlands in ¾ of the state of North Dakota. Also that month, Kevin Stark, Eric Lindquist, and Andy Nadeau spent a week in Idaho, continuing work on a wetland mapping project with the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). The month of July saw two trips to Alaska, where most wetland field visits are conducted by helicopter. Andy and Ian Robertson spent 10 days in northern Alaska, and Eric Lindquist and James Lokken spent 3 weeks exploring wetlands across central and western Alaska, including some time around Nome on the western coast.
August was particularly busy, with two teams spending time in southern Alaska – Katie Engelmann and Emma Behling surveyed wetlands by helicopter, while Mike Knudson and Klaus Friedli floated a remote portion of the Andreafsky River with staff from the Yukon Delta National Wildlife Refuge. In mid-August, five GSS staff members (Kevin Stark, Eric Lindquist, Kathy Allen, Randy Krainock, and Mary Larson) and student intern Katrina Danzinger travelled to the Leech Lake Reservation in north central Minnesota to collect lake sediment cores for a limnology project with the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe. And finally, Eric Lindquist, Matt Hogan, and Klaus Friedli spent 10 days visiting wetlands in northwest Wyoming for a BLM project. September found Andy Robertson travelling around New Mexico, collecting photos for a story map GSS will be creating about our wetland mapping work in the state over the past decade.
Further details on many of these trips (and PHOTOS!!) can be found on the GSS blog (http://www.geospatialservices.org/news) and our social media (Facebook and Instagram).
