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An ancient site on the shores of the Beaufort Sea... known as Nuvuk, which means tip or point, was an ideal spot for hunting and whaling and researchers believe it was occupied continuously for a millennium until the end of the 19th Century... About 20 years ago the deteriorating bluffs north of Utqiagvik began exposing a forgotten Nuvuk graveyard that had been used for hundreds of years, triggering a process to relocate dozens of graves to a protected site inland... So far, 85 graves have been unearthed from the site, making it the largest Thule cemetery ever excavated in North...

April 14, 2018, IceBridge mission scientist John Sonntag spotted something he had never seen before. Sonntag snapped this photograph from the window of the P-3 research plane while flying over the eastern Beaufort Sea. At the time, the aircraft’s location was 69.71° North and 138.22° West, about 50 miles northwest of Canada’s Mackenzie River Delta. “We saw these sorta-circular features only for a few minutes today,” Sonntag wrote from the field. “I don’t recall seeing this sort of thing elsewhere.” The features are more of a curiosity than anything else. The main purpose of the flight that day was to...

Development of resources in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas off Alaska’s Arctic coast would create an average 54,700 jobs/year nationwide with a $145 billion total payroll and generate $193 billion in federal, state, and local revenue over 50 years, according to a study by Northern Economics Inc., Alaska’s largest private economic consulting firm, and the University of Alaska at Anchorage’s Institute of Social and Economic Research. Commercial production of Arctic Alaska offshore oil and gas resources would generate government revenue estimated at $97 billion (in 2010 dollars) in the Beaufort Sea and $96 billion in the Chukchi Sea over 50...

Energy: As the administration loosens restrictions on domestic energy development and offshore drilling, a reviled company develops technology to unlock America's vast shale resources. Drill, baby, drill. We have been among President Obama's harshest critics when it comes to the administration's overly restrictive energy policy, so we were pleasantly surprised to see him announce on Wednesday some light at the end of the pipeline. Some light, for many restrictions will remain in an energy policy best termed schizophrenic. Speaking at Andrews Air Force Base near Washington, D.C., Obama announced the welcome news that his administration will let lease sales go...

Ecology: The administration creates the mother of all protected habitats for a species whose numbers have increased since Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth." It's our hopes for energy independence that are drowning. When filmmaker Phelim McAleer, whose documentary "Not Evil Just Wrong" takes apart the myths of global warming, got to ask Gore a question at the annual conference of the Society of Environmental Journalists, McAleer brought up the nine critical errors in Gore's film "An Inconvenient Truth." A British court two years ago listed them and said they must be righted before the film could be shown in schools...

A federal appeals court on Thursday blocked Royal Dutch Shell from drilling oil wells off Alaska’s North Slope after finding that the Interior Department had failed to conduct an environmental study before issuing the company’s drilling permit. In a long-awaited ruling, the court said that the Minerals Management Service, the federal agency in charge of offshore leasing, had violated the 1970 National Environmental Policy Act by failing to take a “hard look” at the impact that offshore drilling would have on bowhead whales in the Beaufort Sea as well as indigenous communities on the North Slope. The decision canceled Shell’s...

Unexpected partnerships are forming among nations vying to extend their Arctic undersea territories as they join to counter Russia's aggressive Arctic claims. A United States coastguard icebreaker left port in Alaska last week to join a Canadian icebreaker to conduct a seismic survey of the Beaufort seabed north of the Yukon-Alaska border. Both countries are gathering research to support their claim to Arctic territories that may hold vast natural resources and potential new shipping routes. Canada and the US say a past land dispute over 12,000 sq km of seabed elsewhere in the Beaufort Sea is being put aside in...

Ice at the North Pole melted at an unprecedented rate last week, with leading scientists warning that the Arctic could be ice-free in summer by 2013. Satellite images show that ice caps started to disintegrate dramatically several days ago as storms over Alaska's Beaufort Sea began sucking streams of warm air into the Arctic. As a result, scientists say that the disappearance of sea ice at the North Pole could exceed last year's record loss. More than a million square kilometres melted over the summer of 2007 as global warming tightened its grip on the Arctic. But such destruction could...

With no sign of a ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit on a lawsuit over Shell’s U.S. Beaufort Sea exploration plans, the company has decided to call it quits on its planned Beaufort Sea drilling program during the 2008 open water season. The company had hoped to do some top-hole drilling at its Sivulliq prospect on the west side of Camden Bay, as well as conducting some geotechnical boring in the seafloor. “Shell believes this is the responsible decision given the continuing uncertainty and need for our workers and contractors to pursue other opportunities,” Shell...

Company’s MMS exploration plan targets 2 Camden Bay prospects, August drilling Shell Offshore Inc. has filed with the U.S. Minerals Management Service the company’s exploration plan for oil and gas leases in the eastern part of the U.S. Beaufort Sea outer continental shelf. The plan proposes the drilling of 18 exploration wells between 2007 and 2012 in the Camden Bay area, offshore the eastern end of the North Slope and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Of those wells, 13 would target the Sivulliq prospect while five would target the Olympia prospect. The company also hopes to acquire some seismic data...

ANCHORAGE, Alaska, Feb 23 (Reuters) - A pair of high-profile but delayed Alaska oil and gas lease sales are expected to draw heavy interest when bidding takes place next week, a state energy official said on Thursday. High oil prices and an increased number of interested energy companies are expected to boost demand for the leases that will provide producers with the right to explore for oil and gas on state territory, said Bill Van Dyke, acting director of the Alaska Division of Oil and Gas. The leases to the North Slope area and the Beaufort Sea are in the...