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Duane Froese

@tephrafan.bsky.social
298 followers 186 following 45 posts

naturalist | professor | ualberta | northern research | permafrost | Quat Geo | working with northern communities | PACS Lab | Rett Syndrome | he/him

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Duane Froese @tephrafan.bsky.social · 12/10/2026
Some coverage of Joe Young’s recent paper in GRL on Permafrost Detachment Slides in the Mackenzie Mountajns, NWT. #PACSLab #Sahtú #DehCho #permafrost #nwt #UAlberta www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...
cbc.ca
Study says 'bottom-up' permafrost thaw led to two major N.W.T. landslides | CBC News
New research investigates two massive landslides in the Sahtu and Dehcho regions of the N.W.T. that happened nearly a decade ago. Researchers found the landslides were caused by permafrost thaw deep i...
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Duane Froese @tephrafan.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
#GreatCanadians— Anne Carson: Nobel Laureate and Rheostatics collaborator….
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Duane Froese @tephrafan.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Cool. We visited a few new ones this past week. They’re increasing in number and distribution rapidly I should think. Also flew LiDAR over several in July and so should have some very nice maps of their dimensions and distinguishing features.
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Duane Froese @tephrafan.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Wrapping up fieldwork in the Sahtú. September means great fall colours and great landscapes of the central Mackenzie Valley #permafrost #ualberta #Sahtu, #NWT
View of Niffin Twe (Lake) south of Fort Good Hope. Tamarack and Aspen in full colourView of Bear Rock across the Great Bear River at Tulit’a. Mackenzie River (Deh Cho) south of the Ramparts near Fort Good Hope. View shows  river terrace and large river View of team member (Qingseng Du) with drill and extensions installing a ground temperature station in the valley.
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Duane Froese @tephrafan.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Our new paper in GRL: "permafrost detachment slides." Entire frozen hillsides in NWT are failing from the base of permafrost creating the largest permafrost landslides in northern Canada. Thaw is driven by past wildfires and warming. Led by Joe Young. OA 👇 doi.org/10.1029/2026... #permafrost
doi.org
Permafrost Detachment Slides: A Distinct High‐Magnitude Permafrost Mass Wasting Process
PDSs fail through bottom-up thaw and detach the entire permafrost profile, fundamentally different from top-down thaw-driven mass wasting Climate warming and wildfire drive heat to the permafrost...
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Duane Froese @tephrafan.bsky.social · 12/07/2026
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Duane Froese @tephrafan.bsky.social · 10/07/2026
Permafrost is the most exceptional archive of natural history on Earth, and is increasingly at risk with climate change. We wrote a short piece in The Conversation making the case for why these archives matter, and why we need to preserve them in a warming world theconversation.com/earths-deep-...
theconversation.com
Earth’s deep memory is thawing with the Arctic permafrost, degrading records of our ancient world
Permafrost holds an extraordinary molecular record of ancient life — and we are only now learning to read it, just as warming begins to erase it.
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Duane Froese @tephrafan.bsky.social · 10/04/2026
I’m not sure that one came from Nat— though I did inherit alotnof stuff from him. As I recall Nat donated his books to the library for a tax receipt. A very Nat move.
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Duane Froese @tephrafan.bsky.social · 06/08/2025
A new exposure on Sulphur.
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Duane Froese @tephrafan.bsky.social · 04/08/2025
Would be isotopically so interesting if accessible.
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Duane Froese @tephrafan.bsky.social · 04/08/2025
Crazy ice wedge day. 10-12 m high syngenetic ice wedge spanning the Late Pleistocene—early Holocene boundary. #klondike #permasfrost
Photo of an ice rich permafrost exposure with thin aggrading (syngenetic) ice wedge.
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Duane Froese @tephrafan.bsky.social · 19/07/2025
Great new paper on long recurrence interval earthquakes along the Tintina Fault in central Yukon, led by @theronfinley.bsky.social. A nice merging of the rich glacial record of the Yukon with modern seismicity data to understand potential risk in northern Canada. Great work Theron!
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Theron Finley @theronfinley.bsky.social · 16/07/2025
Really pleased to share our new paper in GRL, documenting evidence of multiple Quaternary surface-rupturing earthquakes on the Tintina fault in the Yukon. doi.org/10.1029/2025... @faultydata.bsky.social @earthquakeguy.bsky.social @thatfaultguy.bsky.social @tephrafan.bsky.social
doi.org
Large Surface‐Rupturing Earthquakes and a >12 kyr, Open Interseismic Interval on the Tintina Fault, Yukon
We provide the first conclusive evidence of numerous large (>Mw 7.5) surface-rupturing earthquakes in the Quaternary on the Tintina fault Offsets to Early and Middle Pleistocene glaciofluvial ter...
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Duane Froese @tephrafan.bsky.social · 24/05/2025
New paper with a large cast, but including a lot of permafrost, preserved horse fossils from the Yukon— work we did collaboratively over many years. Nice to see this out. Paper led by indigenous authors, highlighting deep connections horses and communities. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Image of the cover of the journal Science with two horses galloping across a meadow, highlighting the accompanying paper.
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Duane Froese @tephrafan.bsky.social · 16/05/2025
I laughed. And probably best it’s a different Brent.
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Duane Froese @tephrafan.bsky.social · 28/04/2025
The Ukrainian Sherpa UTV all conditions buggy, including amphibious. A spring fieldwork dream…not ours just interloping on their ride with some frozen materials.
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Duane Froese @tephrafan.bsky.social · 25/04/2025
Winning!
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Reposted by Duane Froese
Britta Jensen @tephrabird.bsky.social · 08/04/2025
Hi geoscientists! For those who avoid journals that are profit-focussed and abuse academic free labour (e.g., Elsevier, Nature), take a look at CJES. Non-profit and a storied history. I just joined as AE - journals like this are run with heart and integrity and need your support. #academicsky ⚒️🧪
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Duane Froese @tephrafan.bsky.social · 03/04/2025
I bought my copy from Aquila books in Calgary. Not sure if they’re still there.
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Duane Froese @tephrafan.bsky.social · 03/04/2025
Not sure if you ever read Lew Green’s excellent ‘the Boundary Hunter’s’ about A.O.Wheeler, Ogilvie and the late 19th and early 20th C surveyors of the AK border. 141st Longitude and AK panhandle. It’s a great read.
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Duane Froese @tephrafan.bsky.social · 27/02/2025
There’s a book by Frankfurt (it’s quite short) called On Bullshit that’s worth a read. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Bull...
en.m.wikipedia.org
On Bullshit - Wikipedia
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Duane Froese @tephrafan.bsky.social · 26/02/2025
New paper from Ben Stoker’s PhD with Martin Margold on the ice flow history of the NW Laurentide Ice Sheet. Not for the faint— clicking in at 41p. A huge effort to compile and organize into a consistent ice sheet history with contributions from many. tc.copernicus.org/articles/19/...
tc.copernicus.org
Ice flow dynamics of the northwestern Laurentide Ice Sheet during the last deglaciation
Abstract. Reconstructions of palaeo-ice-stream activity provide insight into the processes governing ice stream evolution over millennial timescales. The northwestern sector of the Laurentide Ice Shee...
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Duane Froese @tephrafan.bsky.social · 20/02/2025
I try to stick to work here, but the ongoing impasse between Edmonton Pub. Schools and the Educational Assistants and Support Workers has gone on for more than a month, affecting our family. More than 1000 kids are being denied access to education. I wrote an Op-Ed @edmontonjournal.bsky.social
edmontonjournal.com
Opinion: Edmonton students with disabilities abandoned during strike
For more than a month, approximately 1,200 Edmonton students with disabilities have been denied their fundamental right to education.
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Duane Froese @tephrafan.bsky.social · 07/02/2025
Yes. And I doubt they will ever go back. Mixed feelings about it. It’s definitely efficient. Though this year with some complex family needs it was welcome.
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Duane Froese @tephrafan.bsky.social · 07/02/2025
Today I finished my third (and final) year of #NSERC Geosciences Eval group. It’s a lot of work, but an enjoyable and rewarding form of service. A remarkable breadth of high quality thoughtful work, and a fair and consistent evaluation process in my experience.
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Duane Froese @tephrafan.bsky.social · 07/02/2025
In a crazy multiverse sort of way, there will be those that have greater success with changes at NSF.
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Duane Froese @tephrafan.bsky.social · 07/02/2025
Will the Grievious Angels ever come west?
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paulseesequasis @pseesequasis.bsky.social · 24/01/2024
In autumn, 1945, American photographer Gordon Parks flew up to Yellowknife on assignment with Standard Oil to do a photo feature but bad weather kept him from his intended destination. Instead he was invited to a nearby Dene community…
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Duane Froese @tephrafan.bsky.social · 27/01/2025
Behind a paywall but a nice profile of Beth Shapiro. We’ve been friends and worked together for 25 or so years. Always creative and now one of the biggest critics of de-extinction is redefining what it might mean for conservation genetics. Worth a read. www.washingtonpost.com/climate-envi...
washingtonpost.com
The dodo bird is extinct. This scientist says she can bring it back.
The company she works for is betting millions it can realize a once-far-fetched idea of “de-extinction.”
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Duane Froese @tephrafan.bsky.social · 07/01/2025
A very cool ancient eDNA paper from Tyler Murchie’s PhD that shows the co-occurrence of distinctive plant, animal, microbial and even gut microbiome communities associated with megafauna and their extinction/extirpation. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
Permafrost microbial communities follow shifts in vegetation, soils, and megafauna extinctions in Late Pleistocene NW North America
Using sedimentary ancient DNA from permafrost sediments deposited between 30,000 and 4000 years ago in Yukon, Canada, we explore whether there were changes in microbial communities paralleling the tr...
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Duane Froese @tephrafan.bsky.social · 07/01/2025
A couple of recent ancient eDNA papers on Klondike permafrost if you’re interested. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
sciencedirect.com
Relict permafrost preserves megafauna, insects, pollen, soils and pore-ice isotopes of the mammoth steppe and its collapse in central Yukon
In eastern Beringia (unglaciated Alaska and western Yukon), the Pleistocene-Holocene transition was characterised by rapid changes in plant, insect an…
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Duane Froese @tephrafan.bsky.social · 07/01/2025
#Permafrost is the most exceptional material for the preservation of past life on the planet. A gram of permafrost can have more than 10^9 fragments of DNA, representing the plants, animals and microbial communities when the material was accumulating. #Klondike #Beringia
View of ice and organics within a permafrost core. Ice veins are shiny and dark colours represent organic matter ca 20,000 years old. Exposure of relict permafrost with drill from the Klondike area of central Yukon within the Trondek Gwichin Territory. The indefatigable Emma Tom Tom, who works excavating the upper part of a Middle Pleistocene mammoth in June 2024. An ancient soil (paleosol) exposed in the Klondike, dating to  the last glacial maximum. The turbic nature reflects cryoturbation in a grassy tussock tundra environment
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Duane Froese @tephrafan.bsky.social · 07/01/2025
View of the Mountain River joining the Mackenzie (Deh Cho) upstream of Fort Good Hope. The Mackenzie (looking north) widens with the addition of the coarse load, becoming braided upstream of the Ramparts. #Sahtu region, #NWT
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Duane Froese @tephrafan.bsky.social · 19/12/2024
Is it really? Conspiracy nonsense.
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Duane Froese @tephrafan.bsky.social · 19/12/2024
bsky.app/profile/inst...
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Duane Froese @tephrafan.bsky.social · 19/12/2024
#FossilFriday appreciation of our cover of the new #Beringia AAAR collection, a fossil rich locale on the Old Crow R. in Vuntut Gwitchin Territory. A river trip with 3 (then) graduate students. More than 1000 Pleist fossils: 70+ mammoth teeth, horses, hyena, camel, giant beaver, sloth and caribou.
Mammoth teeth in a pile of bones. Two tired students with more than 1000 fossils from a single locale, collected in 2-3hrs from the head of a point bar at low water. The point bar site that took 4 of us 2-3hrs to collect the pile of fossils in the left of the photo. Two juvenile and one mature mammoth tooth.
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Greg Fiske @gfiske.bsky.social · 05/12/2024
Arctic Indigenous mapmakers are reclaiming the past, shaping their future. A new story by Jess Howard @permafrostpathways.bsky.social highlighting our collaborative mapping efforts with Esri and native Alaskan communities. permafrost.woodwellclimate.org/arctic-indig...
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Duane Froese @tephrafan.bsky.social · 05/12/2024
That format helps a lot. I still get them to write an intro, lit review/methods chapter. Then the results chapter is the draft manuscript, followed by conclusions. Leads to some repetition, but that’s pretty common in our department. I also make sure they have very complete data appendices.
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Duane Froese @tephrafan.bsky.social · 05/12/2024
We produce a draft manuscript which (hopefully) we revise after they finish the thesis into something for submission. The paper format helps alot. That’s probably successful 75% of the time. Some just move on with life, and that’s ok too. Mostly it falls to the supervisor in my experience.
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Duane Froese @tephrafan.bsky.social · 04/12/2024
Congratulations Dr. Cocker on a successful PhD defence of ‘Arctic ground squirrel middens as palaeoecological archives of east Beringia’. Many thanks to Allan Ashworth for making the trip, and Beth Shapiro, Britta Jensen and JP Zonneveld for examining the dissertation. Great things ahead.
Avery happy newly minted PhD sitting with his more experienced external examiner.
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Duane Froese @tephrafan.bsky.social · 28/11/2024
A view from this past September of talus and rock glaciers on the northeast facing aspect of the Norman Range, NWT in the #Sahtu area.
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Duane Froese @tephrafan.bsky.social · 28/11/2024
Look at those brilliant core images!!
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Reposted by Duane Froese
Brendan O’Neill @permafrostee.bsky.social · 28/11/2024
Check out the #permafrost pack and let me know if you should be on it! Please share far and wide and yell into the BlueSky from the frozen mountaintops to the Arctic tundra! go.bsky.app/UhFqWzJ
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Duane Froese @tephrafan.bsky.social · 24/11/2024
If the whole system depends on one person filing a progress report that system has problems….
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Duane Froese @tephrafan.bsky.social · 24/11/2024
I totally feel this. The lack of support for life events in academic space is terrible. Too much depends on the PI. I have several high performing colleagues that have left to industry/govt/early retirement for this reason. The lack of teamwork/support is one of academia’s great weaknesses.
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Duane Froese @tephrafan.bsky.social · 22/11/2024
Vancouver is no Edmonton.
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Duane Froese @tephrafan.bsky.social · 22/11/2024
It came from the #permafrost… #FossilFriday— a juvenile horse lower leg with soft tissue from the Klondike. Distal long bones are the most common Pleistocene mummified remains recovered, having been partially scavenged. #Yukon #Beringia, Tr'ondëk Hwëch'in Territory.
View of sub-fossil horse hoof held by researcher recovered from permafrost. Side view of lower leg, with outer layer of keratin degraded.
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Duane Froese @tephrafan.bsky.social · 21/11/2024
There is a description from the early 20th C suggesting muck/yedoma has the ‘smell of a charnel-house’. I prefer to think of it as the sweet smell of a horse barn. The exception being when mummified soft tissue is preserved the smell is far more of the rotting/decomposing kind.
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Duane Froese @tephrafan.bsky.social · 21/11/2024
I'm a Quaternary/permafrost geoscientist focused on ground ice, its vulnerability, and the exceptional things found in permafrost. I work with northern govts and communities to understand permafrost change with occasional digressions into the paleo world of permafrost.
Partially drained lake ruined by diverse vegetation.  Guardians from K’ash Got’ine Foundation collecting peat cores within Tuyeta protected area   Degrading ice-rich peat plateau (yellow lichen covered) collapsing into unfrozen fen in NWT.  Organic rich ice wedge within yedoma sediments in unglaciated Yukon has been frozen for >50,000 years.
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Duane Froese @tephrafan.bsky.social · 14/11/2024
Not sure if one tweets or skies here but hopefully Pleistocene mummies can find a home here. www.nature.com/articles/s41...
nature.com
Mummy of a juvenile sabre-toothed cat Homotherium latidens from the Upper Pleistocene of Siberia - Scientific Reports
Scientific Reports - Mummy of a juvenile sabre-toothed cat Homotherium latidens from the Upper Pleistocene of Siberia
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