Field work in SE Alaska

Supported in part by the Austrian Academy of Sciences through the Hlauschek Legat, former LFU postdoctoral researcher Paul Wilcox and Christoph, together with Jessica Honkonen, spent two weeks on Prince of Wales Island exploring caves and assessing their potential for future palaeoclimate research.

Working alongside personnel from the U.S. Tongass Forest Service, the team visited El Capitan Cave, currently Alaska’s longest known cave and the only cave in the state whose entrance section is developed as a show cave. They also explored several other caves across the region, collecting small-diameter drill cores from speleothems for reconnaissance dating to evaluate their suitability for palaeoclimate studies.