Chukchi Sea
Chukchi Sea, sometimes referred to as the Chukotsk Sea or the Sea of Chukotsk, is a marginal sea of the Arctic Ocean. It is bounded on the west by the Long Strait, off Wrangel Island, in the east by Point Barrow, beyond which lies the Beaufort Sea; the Bering Strait forms its southernmost limit and connects it to the Bering Sea and the Pacific Ocean. The principal port on the Chukchi Sea is Uelen in Russia; the International Date Line crosses the Chukchi Sea from northwest to southeast. It is displaced eastwards to avoid Wrangel Island as well as the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug on the Russian mainland; the sea is only navigable about four months of the year. The main geological feature of the Chukchi Sea bottom is the 700-kilometre-long Hope Basin, bound to the northeast by the Herald Arch. Depths less than 50 meters occupy 56% of the total area; the Chukchi Sea has few islands compared to other seas of the Arctic. Wrangel Island lies at the northwestern limit of the sea, Herald Island is located near its northern limit, a few small islands lie along the Siberian and Alaskan coasts.
The sea is named after the Chukchi people, who reside on the Chukotka Peninsula. The coastal Chukchi traditionally engaged in fishing and the hunting of walrus in this cold sea. In Siberia places along the coast are: Cape Billings, Cape Schmidt, Amguyema River, Cape Vankarem, the large Kolyuchinskaya Bay, Neskynpil'gyn Lagoon, Cape Serdtse-Kamen, Chegitun River, Inchoun and Cape Dezhnev. In Alaska, the rivers flowing into the Chukchi Sea are the Kivalina, the Kobuk, the Kokolik, the Kukpowruk, the Kukpuk, the Noatak, the Utukok, the Pitmegea, the Wulik, among others. Of rivers flowing in from its Siberian side, the Amguyema and the Chegitun are the most important; the International Hydrographic Organization defines the limits of the "Chuckchi Sea" as follows: On the West. The Eastern limit of East Siberian Sea. On the North. A line from Point Barrow, Alaska to the Northernmost point of Wrangel Island. On the South; the Arctic Circle between Siberia and Alaska. Common usage is that the southern extent is further south, at the narrowest part of the Bering Strait, on the 66th parallel north.
The Chukchi Sea Shelf is the westernmost part of the continental shelf of the United States and the easternmost part of the continental shelf of Russia. Within this shelf, the 50-mile Chukchi Corridor acts as a passageway for one of the largest marine mammal migrations in the world. Species that have been documented migrating through this corridor include the bowhead whale, beluga whale, Pacific walrus, bearded seals In 1648, Semyon Dezhnyov sailed from the Kolyma River on the Arctic to the Anadyr River on the Pacific, but his route was not practical and was not used for the next 200 years. In 1728, Vitus Bering and in 1779, Captain James Cook entered the sea from the Pacific. On 28 September 1878, during Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld's expedition that made the whole length of the Northeast passage for the first time in history, the steamship Vega got stuck in fast ice in the Chukchi Sea. Since further progress for that year was impossible, the ship was secured in winter quarters. So, members of the expedition and the crew were aware only a few miles of ice-blocked sea lay between them and the open waters.
The following year, two days after Vega was released, she passed the Bering Strait and steamed towards the Pacific Ocean. In 1913, abandoned by expedition leader Vilhjalmur Stefansson, drifted in the ice along the northern expanses of the Chukchi Sea and sank, crushed by ice near Herald Island; the survivors made it to Wrangel Island. Captain Robert Bartlett walked hundreds of kilometers with Kataktovik, an Inuit man, on the ice of the Chukchi Sea in order to look for help, they reached Cape Vankarem on the Chukotka coast, on April 15, 1914. Twelve survivors of the ill-fated expedition were found on Wrangel island nine months by the King & Winge, a newly built Arctic fishing schooner. In 1933, the steamer Chelyuskin sailed from Murmansk, east bound to attempt a transit of the Northern Sea Route to the Pacific, in order to demonstrate such a transit could be achieved in one season; the vessel became beset in heavy ice in the Chukchi Sea, after drifting with the ice for over two months, was crushed and sank on 13 February 1934 near Kolyuchin Island.
Apart from one fatality, her entire complement of 104 was able to establish a camp on the sea ice. The Soviet government organised an impressive aerial evacuation. Captain Vladimir Voronin and expedition leader Otto Schmidt became heroes. Following several unsuccessful attempts, the wreck was located on the bed of the Chukchi Sea by a Russian expedition, Chelyuskin-70, in mid-September 2006. Two small components of the ship's superstructure were recovered by divers and were sent to the ship's builders, Burmeister & Wain of Copenhagen, for identification. In July 2009, a large mass of organic material was found floating in the sea off the northwest Alaskan coast. Analysis by the U. S. Coast Guard has identified it as a large body of algal bloom. On 15 October 2010, Russian scientists opened a floating polar research station in the Chukchi Sea at the margin of the Arctic Ocean; the name of the station was Severny Polyus-38 and it was home to 15 researchers for a year. They conducted polar studies and gat
Beaufort Sea
The Beaufort Sea is a marginal sea of the Arctic Ocean, located north of the Northwest Territories, the Yukon, Alaska, west of Canada's Arctic islands. The sea is named after a hydrographer; the Mackenzie River, the longest in Canada, empties into the Canadian part of the Beaufort Sea west of Tuktoyaktuk, one of the few permanent settlements on the sea shores. The sea, characterized by severe climate, is frozen over most of the year. Only a narrow pass up to 100 km opened in August–September near its shores, but due to climate change in the Arctic the ice-free area in late summer has enlarged. Claims that the seacoast was populated about 30,000 years ago have been discredited; the sea contains significant resources of petroleum and natural gas under its shelf, such as the Amauligak field. They were discovered in the period between the 1950s and 1980s, their exploration became the major human activity in the area since the 1980s; the traditional occupations of fishery and whale and seal hunting are practiced only locally, have no commercial significance.
As a result, the sea hosts one of the largest colonies of beluga whales, there is no sign of overfishing. To prevent overfishing in its waters, the US adopted precautionary commercial fisheries management plan in August 2009. In April 2011 the Canadian government signed a memorandum of understanding with the Inuvialuit as a first step in developing a larger ocean management plan; the Canadian government announced in October 2014 that no new commercial fisheries in the Beaufort Sea will be considered until research has shown sustainable stocks that would be made available to Inuvialuit first. The Canadian government has set a new block of the Beaufort Sea off the Parry Peninsula in the Amundsen as a Marine Protected Area; the protected area is set to protect habits for the Inuvialuit community. The International Hydrographic Organization defines the limits of the Beaufort Sea as follows: On the North. A line from Point Barrow, Alaska, to Lands End, Prince Patrick Island. On the East. From Lands End through the Southwest coast of Prince Patrick Island to Griffiths Point, thence a line to Cape Prince Alfred, the Northwestern extreme of Banks Island, through its West coast to Cape Kellet, the Southwestern point, thence a line to Cape Bathurst on the mainland.
There is an unresolved dispute involving a wedge-shaped slice on the International Boundary in the Beaufort Sea, between the Canadian territory of Yukon and the U. S. state of Alaska. Canada claims the maritime boundary to be along the 141st meridian west out to a distance of 200 nmi, following the Alaska–Yukon land border; the position of the United States is that the boundary line is perpendicular to the coast out to a distance of 200 nmi, following a line of equidistance from the coast. This difference creates a wedge with an area of about 21,000 km2, claimed by both nations. Canada's position has its roots in the Treaty of Saint Petersburg between the United Kingdom and the Russian Empire that set the boundary between the two. Canada is the successor state to Great Britain in relation to this treaty, which stipulates: the line of demarcation shall follow the summit of the mountains situated parallel to the Coast, as far as the point of intersection of the 141st degree of West longitude and from the said point of intersection, the said Meridian Line of the 141st degree, in its prolongation as far as the Frozen Ocean Canada maintains that this treaty is extensible from the land into the Beaufort Sea along the meridian.
The United States rejects this extension and instead asserts a boundary line based upon equidistance, although its position is somewhat undermined by its acceptance in 1867 of similar treaty wording and a similar interpretation under the treaty whereby it acquired Alaska. Both the U. S. and Canada agree. They differ on what should be deemed "equitable"; the U. S. contends that "equidistance is an appropriate principle for determining a maritime boundary where there are no special circumstances in the area and when equidistance results in a boundary in accordance with equitable principles". Canada contends that an equidistance principle does not result in an equitable boundary, because distortion would occur; the coast of Yukon is concave. S. possession. This dispute has taken on increased significance due to the possible presence of natural reserves within the wedge, which according to Canada's National Energy Board may contain 1,700,000,000 m3 of gas, which would cover the national consumption for 20 years, more than 1,000,000,000 m3 of oil.
Because of this, Canada argues that "special circumstances" apply to this border, a position that the U. S. rejects. This dispute is in this respect a mirror image of the dispute between the U. S. and Canada over the Gulf of Maine, where the U. S. argued for "special circumstances" and Canada argued for the equidistance principle. Neither the U. S. nor Canada has pressed for a swift resolution for the matter, or arbitration at the International Court of Justice, however.
Outline of Alaska
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to the U. S. state of Alaska: Alaska – most extensive, westernmost, second newest, least densely populated of the 50 states of the United States of America. Alaska occupies the westernmost extent of the Americas, bordering British Columbia and the Yukon, is detached from the other 49 states; the summit of Denali at 6194 meters is the highest point of North America. Names Common name: Alaska Pronunciation: Official name: State of Alaska Abbreviations and name codes Postal symbol: AK ISO 3166-2 code: US-AK Internet second-level domain:.ak.us Nicknames Great Land Land of the Midnight Sun The Last Frontier Seward's Folly Seward's Ice Box, Polaria and Johnson's Polar Bear Garden were satirical names coined by members of the U. S. Congress during debate over the Alaska Purchase Adjectivals Alaska Alaskan Demonym: Alaskan Geography of Alaska Alaska is: a U. S. state, a federal state of the United States of America Location: westernmost North America Northern and Western Hemisphere Americas North America Anglo America Northern America United States of America Alaska Time Zone Population of Alaska: 710,231 Area of Alaska: Atlas of Alaska Places in Alaska Historic places in Alaska Ghost towns in Alaska National Historic Landmarks in Alaska National Register of Historic Places listings in Alaska Bridges on the National Register of Historic Places in Alaska National Natural Landmarks in Alaska National parks in Alaska – see List of areas in the United States National Park System.
Denali National Park and Preserve Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve Katmai National Park and Preserve Kenai Fjords National Park Kobuk Valley National Park Lake Clark National Park and Preserve Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve State parks in Alaska Climate of Alaska Protected areas in Alaska State forests of Alaska Superfund sites in Alaska Wildlife of Alaska Fauna of Alaska Birds of Alaska Mammals of Alaska List of reservoirs and dams of Alaska Trans-Alaska Pipeline System Islands of Alaska Lakes of Alaska Mountains of Alaska Mountain peaks of Alaska Highest mountain peaks of Alaska Volcanic craters in Alaska Rivers of Alaska Waterfalls in Alaska Alaska Interior Alaska North Slope Alaska Panhandle Arctic Alaska Kenai Peninsula Matanuska-Susitna Valley Seward Peninsula Southcentral Alaska Southwest Alaska Alaska Peninsula Tanana Valley The Bush Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta Boroughs and census areas of the state of Alaska Municipalities in Alaska Cities in Alaska State capital of Alaska: Juneau Largest city in Alaska: Anchorage City nicknames in Alaska Native tribal entities Towns in Alaska List of boroughs in Alaska Aleutians East Borough Anchorage Borough Bristol Bay Borough Fairbanks North Star Borough Haines Borough Juneau Kenai Peninsula Borough Ketchikan Gateway Borough Kodiak Island Borough Lake and Peninsula Borough Matanuska-Susitna Borough North Slope Borough Northwest Arctic Borough Sitka Borough Skagway Borough Unorganized Borough Wrangell Yakutat City and Borough Demographics of Alaska Alaska locations by per capita income Politics of Alaska Form of government: U.
S. state government United States congressional delegations from Alaska Alaska State Capitol Elections in Alaska Electoral reform in Alaska Legal status of Alaska Political party strength in Alaska Political scandals Alaska political corruption probe Government of Alaska Governor of Alaska Lieutenant Governor of Alaska State departments Alaska Department of Commerce and Economic Development Alaska Department of Corrections Alaska Department of Health and Social Services Alaska Division of Juvenile Justice Alaska Permanent Fund Alaska Volcano Observatory Alaska Department of Education & Early Development Alaska Department of Fish and Game Alaska Department of Natural Resources Alaska Department of Transportation & Public Facilities Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission Alaska State Medical Board Alaska State Pension Investment Board Alaska Legislature Upper house: Alaska Senate Lower house: Alaska House of Representatives Alaska Legislative Council List of Alaska State Legislatures Courts of Alaska Alaska Court System Supreme Court of Alaska United States District Court for the District of Alaska List of United States federal courthouses in Alaska Cannabis in Alaska Capital punishment in Alaska: none.
Alaska abolished the death penalty prior to statehood, eight men were executed by the earlier territorial government and earlier "Miner's Courts" executed a number of men in the 19th century. See Capital punishment in the United States. Constitution of Alaska Crime in Alaska Gun laws in Alaska Law enforcement in Alaska Law enforcement agencies in Alaska Alaska State Troopers Penal system in Alaska Alaska Department of Corrections Prisons in Alaska Same-sex marriage in Alaska Alaska National Guard Alaska Air National Guard Alaska Army National Guard Alaska State Defense Force Assembly of the City and Borough of Juneau, Alaska History of Alaska Prehistory of Alaska History of slavery in Alaska Russian Alaska, 1741 – 1867 Great Northern Expedition, 1733 – 1743 Spanish expeditions to Alaska, 1744 – 1791 U. S. Department of Alaska, 1867 – 1884 Alaska Purchase, treaty signed on March 30, 1867 Gold mining in Alaska Klondike Gold Rush, 1896 – 1899 Alaska boundary dispute, 1896 – 1903 District of Alaska, 1884 – 1912 Hay-Herbert Treaty, arbitration committee resolution occurred October 20, 1903 Ter
Juneau, Alaska
The City and Borough of Juneau known as Juneau, is the capital city of Alaska. It is a unified municipality on Gastineau Channel in the Alaskan panhandle, it is the second largest city in the United States by area. Juneau has been the capital of Alaska since 1906, when the government of what was the District of Alaska was moved from Sitka as dictated by the U. S. Congress in 1900; the municipality unified on July 1, 1970, when the city of Juneau merged with the city of Douglas and the surrounding Greater Juneau Borough to form the current municipality, larger by area than both Rhode Island and Delaware. Downtown Juneau is nestled across the channel from Douglas Island; as of the 2010 census, the City and Borough had a population of 31,276. In 2014, the population estimate from the United States Census Bureau was 32,406, making it the second most populous city in Alaska after Anchorage. Fairbanks, however, is the state's second most populous metropolitan area, with 100,000 residents. Juneau's daily population can increase by 6,000 people from visiting cruise ships between the months of May and September.
The city is named after a gold prospector from Quebec, Joe Juneau, though the place was for a time called Rockwell and Harrisburg. The Tlingit name of the town is Dzántik'i Héeni, Auke Bay just north of Juneau proper is called Áak'w in Tlingit; the Taku River, just south of Juneau, was named after the cold t'aakh wind, which blows down from the mountains. Juneau is unusual among U. S. capitals in that there are no roads connecting the city to the rest of Alaska or to the rest of North America. The absence of a road network is due to the rugged terrain surrounding the city; this in turn makes Juneau a de facto island city in terms of transportation, since all goods coming in and out must go by plane or boat, in spite of the city being on the Alaskan mainland. Downtown Juneau sits at sea level, with tides averaging 16 feet, below steep mountains about 3,500 feet to 4,000 feet high. Atop these mountains is the Juneau Icefield, a large ice mass from which about 30 glaciers flow; the Mendenhall glacier has been retreating.
The Alaska State Capitol in downtown Juneau was built as the Federal and Territorial Building in 1931. Prior to statehood, it housed the federal courthouse and a post office, it housed the territorial legislature and many other territorial offices, including that of the governor. Today, Juneau remains the home of the state legislature and the offices of the governor and lieutenant governor; some other executive branch offices have moved elsewhere in the state. Recent discussion has been focused between relocating the seat of state government outside Juneau and building a new capitol building in Juneau. Long before European settlement in the Americas, the Gastineau Channel was a favorite fishing ground for the Auke and Taku tribes, who had inhabited the surrounding area for thousands of years; the A'akw Kwáan had a burying ground here. In the 21st century it is known as Indian Point, they annually harvested herring during the spawning season, celebrated this bounty. Since the late 20th century, the A'akw Kwáan, together with the Sealaska Heritage Institute, have resisted European-American development of Indian Point, including proposals by the National Park Service and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
They consider it sacred territory, both because of the burying ground and the importance of the point in their traditions of gathering sustenance from the sea. They continue to gather clams, gumboots and sea urchins here, as well as tree bark for medicinal uses; the city and state supported Sealaska Heritage Institute in documenting the 78-acre site, in August 2016 it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places. "It is the first traditional cultural property in Southeast Alaska to be placed on the register."Descendants of these indigenous cultures include the Tlingit people. Native cultures have rich artistic traditions expressed in carving, orating and dancing. Juneau has become a major social center for the Tlingit and Tsimshian of Southeast Alaska. Although the Russians had a colony in the Alaska territory from 1784 to 1867, they did not settle in Juneau, they conducted extensive fur trading with Alaskan Natives of the Aleutian Islands and Kodiak. Some ships explored this area, but did not record it.
The first European to see the Juneau area is recorded as Joseph Whidbey, master of the Discovery during George Vancouver’s 1791–95 expedition. He and his party explored the region in July–August 1794. Early in August he viewed the length of Gastineau Channel from the south, noting a small island in mid-channel, he recorded seeing the channel again, this time from the west. He said. After the California gold rush, miners migrated up the Pacific Coast and explored the West, seeking other gold deposits. In 1880, Sitka mining engineer George Pilz offered a reward to any local chief in Alaska who could lead him to gold-bearing ore. Chief Kowee arrived with some ore, several prospectors were sent to in
Petroleum
Petroleum is a occurring, yellowish-black liquid found in geological formations beneath the Earth's surface. It is refined into various types of fuels. Components of petroleum are separated using a technique called fractional distillation, i.e. separation of a liquid mixture into fractions differing in boiling point by means of distillation using a fractionating column. It consists of occurring hydrocarbons of various molecular weights and may contain miscellaneous organic compounds; the name petroleum covers both occurring unprocessed crude oil and petroleum products that are made up of refined crude oil. A fossil fuel, petroleum is formed when large quantities of dead organisms zooplankton and algae, are buried underneath sedimentary rock and subjected to both intense heat and pressure. Petroleum has been recovered by oil drilling. Drilling is carried out after studies of structural geology, sedimentary basin analysis, reservoir characterisation have been completed, it is refined and separated, most by distillation, into a large number of consumer products, from gasoline and kerosene to asphalt and chemical reagents used to make plastics and pharmaceuticals.
Petroleum is used in manufacturing a wide variety of materials, it is estimated that the world consumes about 95 million barrels each day. The use of petroleum as fuel is controversial due to its impact on global warming and ocean acidification. Fossil fuels, including petroleum, need to be phased out by the end of 21st century to avoid "severe and irreversable impacts for people and ecosystems", according to the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change; the word petroleum comes from Medieval Latin petroleum, which comes from Latin petra', "rock", Latin oleum, "oil". The term was used in the treatise De Natura Fossilium, published in 1546 by the German mineralogist Georg Bauer known as Georgius Agricola. In the 19th century, the term petroleum was used to refer to mineral oils produced by distillation from mined organic solids such as cannel coal, refined oils produced from them. Petroleum, in one form or another, has been used since ancient times, is now important across society, including in economy and technology.
The rise in importance was due to the invention of the internal combustion engine, the rise in commercial aviation, the importance of petroleum to industrial organic chemistry the synthesis of plastics, solvents and pesticides. More than 4000 years ago, according to Herodotus and Diodorus Siculus, asphalt was used in the construction of the walls and towers of Babylon. Great quantities of it were found on the banks of the river Issus, one of the tributaries of the Euphrates. Ancient Persian tablets indicate the medicinal and lighting uses of petroleum in the upper levels of their society; the use of petroleum in ancient China dates back to more than 2000 years ago. In I Ching, one of the earliest Chinese writings cites that oil in its raw state, without refining, was first discovered and used in China in the first century BCE. In addition, the Chinese were the first to use petroleum as fuel as early as the fourth century BCE. By 347 AD, oil was produced from bamboo-drilled wells in China. Crude oil was distilled by Arabic chemists, with clear descriptions given in Arabic handbooks such as those of Muhammad ibn Zakarīya Rāzi.
The streets of Baghdad were paved with tar, derived from petroleum that became accessible from natural fields in the region. In the 9th century, oil fields were exploited in the area around Azerbaijan; these fields were described by the Arab geographer Abu al-Hasan'Alī al-Mas'ūdī in the 10th century, by Marco Polo in the 13th century, who described the output of those wells as hundreds of shiploads. Arab and Persian chemists distilled crude oil in order to produce flammable products for military purposes. Through Islamic Spain, distillation became available in Western Europe by the 12th century, it has been present in Romania since the 13th century, being recorded as păcură. Early British explorers to Myanmar documented a flourishing oil extraction industry based in Yenangyaung that, in 1795, had hundreds of hand-dug wells under production. Pechelbronn is said to be the first European site where petroleum has been used; the still active Erdpechquelle, a spring where petroleum appears mixed with water has been used since 1498, notably for medical purposes.
Oil sands have been mined since the 18th century. In Wietze in lower Saxony, natural asphalt/bitumen has been explored since the 18th century. Both in Pechelbronn as in the coal industry dominated the petroleum technologies. Chemist James Young noticed a natural petroleum seepage in the Riddings colliery at Alfreton, Derbyshire from which he distilled a light thin oil suitable for use as lamp oil, at the same time obtaining a more viscous oil suitable for lubricating machinery. In 1848, Young set up a small business refining the crude oil. Young succeeded, by distilling cannel coal at a low heat, in creating a fluid resembling petroleum, which when treated in the same way as the seep oil gave similar products. Young found that by sl
Prudhoe Bay Oil Field
Prudhoe Bay Oil Field is a large oil field on Alaska's North Slope. It is the largest oil field in North America, covering 213,543 acres and containing 25 billion barrels of oil; the amount of recoverable oil in the field is more than double that of the next largest field in the United States, the East Texas oil field. The field is operated by BP; the field is located 400 miles north of Fairbanks and 650 miles north of Anchorage, 250 miles north of the Arctic Circle, 1,200 miles south of the North Pole. It is on the North Slope and lies between the National Petroleum Reserve–Alaska to the west and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to the east; the State of Alaska leases the area as the Prudhoe Bay Unit. In the terminology that the State of Alaska uses in its leasing program, the "Prudhoe Bay Oil Field" is called the Prudhoe Bay Oil Pool. Oil pools within the Prudhoe Bay Unit include the following - maps showing the location of each pool are in the associated reference; the area was identified as a potential oil field and selected in the early 1960s as part of the 100 million acres the federal government allotted to the new state of Alaska under the Alaska Statehood Act as a form of economic support.
Tom Marshall, a key state employee tasked with selecting the 100 million acres, said the geology reminded him of big oil basins he'd seen in Wyoming. Commercial oil exploration started in Prudhoe Bay area in the 1960s and, after a number of fruitless years, a rig produced a natural gas flare in December 1967; the oil field was confirmed on March 12, 1968, by Humble Oil and Atlantic Richfield Company, with the well Prudhoe Bay State #1. ARCO was the operating partner. Drilling sites for the discovery and confirmation wells were staked by geologist Marvin Mangus. BP was among the companies, active in the region, BP was able to establish itself as a major player in the western part of the Prudhoe field; the field was operated as two separate developments, the BP Western Operating Area and the ARCO Eastern Operating Area. Upon acquisition of ARCO by BP and sale of ARCO Alaska assets to Phillips Petroleum in 2000, the two operating areas were consolidated and BP became the sole operator of the field.
In 1974 the State of Alaska's Division of Geological & Geophysical Surveys estimated that the field held 10 billion barrels of oil and 26 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. Production did not begin until June 1977 when the Alaska Pipeline was completed; the site of the field's discovery was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2000, has a commemorative marker. A well was operated at that site until 1985; the field was operated as two separate developments, the BP Western Operating Area and the ARCO Eastern Operating Area. Upon acquisition of ARCO by BP and sale of ARCO Alaska assets to Phillips Petroleum in 2000, the two operating areas were consolidated and BP became the sole operator of the field. In the field, oil is moved through pipelines from about 1000 wells to a pumping station at the head of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline. According to a 2007 recording of BP representative, to replace the "huge volume of material" BP removes from beneath the ground, sea water is injected, collected from Prudhoe Bay, Alaska.
North Slope oil production peaked in 1989 at 2 million barrels per day (Greater Prudhoe Bay: 1.5 million barrels per day, but had fallen to 943,000 barrels per day in 2005, while Greater Prudhoe averaged 411,000 barrels per day in December, 2006 and Prudhoe itself averaged 285,000 barrels per day. Total production from 1977 through 2005 was 11 billion barrels; as of August 2006, BP estimated that 2 billion barrels of recoverable oil remain and can be recovered with current technology. The Milne Point oil field is 35 miles west of Prudhoe Bay and the leased area, called the Milne Point Unit by the State of Alaska, includes the Kuparuk River Oil Pool, Sag River Oil Pool, the Schrader Bluff Oil Pool; the source rock for the Prudhoe Bay Oil Field and neighboring reserves is a potential source for tight oil and shale gas. As of 2013 mineral rights to 500,000 acres overlying the North Slope oil shale had been leased by Great Bear Petroleum whose principal is the petroleum geologist Ed Duncan; the field is an anticline structure located on the Barrow Arch, with faulting on the north side of the arch and a Lower Cretaceous unconformity on the east.
Claims on petroleum seeps in the Cape Simpson area were first made in 1915 by a group consisting of T. L. Richardson, W. B. Van Valen, O. Hansen, B. Panigeo and Egowa after these last two, pointed out two large mounds fifty feet high and 200 feet in diameter. Gold prospectors Smith and Berry discovered these seeps and formed an investment group in San Francisco led by R. D. Adams, who funded an investigation led by the geologist H. A. Campbell, his report noted disputing claims by Standard Oil Company. This led to the establishment of the Naval Petroleum Reserve No. 4 in 1923, after which the Navy engaged the United States Geological Survey to survey the area from 1923 until 1926, who concluded the best objectives were Cretaceous rocks. From 1943 until 1953, the Navy drilled eighty wells, including the area at Cape Simpson and Umiat but none flowed more than 250 barrels per day; the discovery of the Swanson River Oil Field on the Kenai Peninsula in 1957 by the Richfiel
Landsat 7
Landsat 7 is the seventh satellite of the Landsat program. Launched on April 15, 1999, Landsat 7's primary goal is to refresh the global archive of satellite photos, providing up-to-date and cloud-free images; the Landsat Program is managed and operated by the USGS, data from Landsat 7 is collected and distributed by the USGS. The NASA World Wind project allows 3D images from Landsat 7 and other sources to be navigated and viewed from any angle; the satellite's companion, Earth Observing-1, trailed by one minute and followed the same orbital characteristics, but in 2011 its fuel was depleted and EO-1's orbit began to degrade. Landsat 7 was built by Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company. In 2016, NASA announced plans to attempt the first refueling of a live satellite by refueling Landsat 7 in 2020. Landsat 7 was designed to last for five years, has the capacity to collect and transmit up to 532 images per day, it is in a sun-synchronous orbit, meaning it scans across the entire earth's surface.
With an altitude of 705 kilometers + / - 5 kilometers, it takes 16 days, to do so. The satellite weighs 1973 kg, is 4.04 m long, 2.74 m in diameter. Unlike its predecessors, Landsat 7 has a solid state memory of 378 gigabits; the main instrument on board Landsat 7 is the Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus. A panchromatic band with "15 m" spatial resolution Visible bands in the spectrum of blue, red, near-infrared, mid-infrared with 30 m spatial resolution A thermal infrared channel with 60 m spatial resolution Full aperture, 5% absolute radiometric calibration On May 31, 2003 the Scan Line Corrector in the ETM+ instrument failed; the SLC consists of a pair of small mirrors that rotate about an axis in tandem with the motion of the main ETM+ scan mirror. The purpose of the SLC is to compensate for the forward motion of the spacecraft so that the resulting scans are aligned parallel to each other. Without the effects of the SLC, the instrument images the Earth in a "zig-zag" fashion, resulting in some areas that are imaged twice and others that are not imaged at all.
The net effect is that 22% of the data in a Landsat 7 scene is missing when acquired without a functional SLC. Following the SLC failure, an Anomaly Response Team was assembled, consisting of representatives from the USGS, NASA, Hughes Santa Barbara Remote Sensing; the team assembled a list of possible failure scenarios, most of which pointed at a mechanical problem with the SLC itself. Since there is no backup SLC, a mechanical failure would indicate. However, the team was unable to rule out the possibility of an electrical failure, though such a possibility was deemed remote. On September 3, 2003, USGS director Charles G. Groat authorized the Landsat project to reconfigure the ETM+ instrument and various other subsystems on board Landsat 7 to use the spacecraft's redundant electrical harness. With this authorization, the USGS flight operations team at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center uploaded a series of commands to the spacecraft, instructing it to operate using the redundant electrical harness.
This operation was successful, on September 5, 2003, the ETM+ instrument was turned on and acquired data, sent to the Landsat ground system at EROS outside Sioux Falls, South Dakota. It was apparent that the migration to the Side-B electrical harness had not fixed the problem with the SLC. Following this, the instrument was reconfigured again to use its primary electrical harness; the subsequent conclusion of the ART was that the SLC problem was mechanical and permanent in nature. Landsat 7 continues to acquire data in this mode. Data products are available with the missing data optionally filled in using other Landsat 7 data selected by the user. In 2013, Landsat 7 was joined by Landsat 8. In August 1998, NASA contracted EarthSat to produce Landsat GeoCover —a positionally accurate orthorectified Landsat Thematic Mapper and Multispectral Scanner imagery covering the majority of the Earth's land mass; the contract was part of the NASA Scientific Data Purchase, administrated through NASA's John C. Stennis Space Center.
GeoCover was enhanced to EarthSat NaturalVue, a simulated natural color Landsat 7 derived c. Year 2000, orthorectified and color balanced digital image dataset. Other commercial simulated true color 15-meter global imagery products built from the NASA Landsat 7 imagery include TerraColor from Earthstar Geographics, TruEarth from TerraMetrics, BrightEarth from ComputaMaps, simulated natural color from Atlogis and a product of i-cubed used in World Wind. Largest parts of the earth surface displayed on web mapping services like Google Maps/Google Earth, MSN Maps or Yahoo Maps are based on enhanced and color balanced Landsat 7 imagery. Google Earth NASA World Wind Virtual globe UNIFORM-1 NASA's Landsat 7 Website Landsat 7 Science Data Users Handbook The USGS' Landsat Website "Landsat 7 Media Kit". Boeing. Archived from the original on 1999-05-08. NASA's World Wind Project List of Landsat layers available in World Wind NASA Applied Sciences Directorate website for free viewing/download of Landsat GeoCover band 742 mosaics University of Maryland Global Land Cover Facility for free viewing/download of individual Landsat images, GeoCover mosaics, other earth imagery data Harris GLOBE15 - Harris Corporation Geospatial website EarthSat's NaturalVue 2000: Global natural color satellite imagery coverage, based on Landsat 7 data acquired between 1999 and 2001 Te
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