The Coastal Tundra at Barrow 



FIGURE 1-2. The Arctic Coastal Plain. The lakes are surrounded by 

 marshy and polygonal terrain. The large lake (top center) is several kilo- 

 meters long. (Photograph by J.J. Koranda.) 



To the north the mountains of the Brooks Range give way to the 

 rounded summits and rolling terrain of the glaciated Foothills. Tussock 

 tundra dominated by Eriophorum vaginatum with a rich assemblage of 

 associated species, including Salixpulchra, Betulaexilis, Vaccinium vitis- 

 idaea, V. uliginosum and Ledum decumbens, covers vast expanses. Dry 

 meadows and fellfields exist on the drier, exposed ridges, and sedge mea- 

 dows and willow thickets in the wetter valleys and swales. The northern 

 sections of the Foothills were not glaciated, but are similar in appearance 

 to the tussock tundra of the glaciated southern sections. 



The Coastal Plain is composed of near-shore marine, fluvial, 

 alluvial and aeolian deposits of mid- to late-Quaternary age (Black 1964). 

 The sediments are the products of a series of marine transgressions that 

 encroached upon the plain. The most recent and least extensive occurred 

 during mid-Wisconsinan time (Sellmann and Brown 1973). Large, ellipti- 

 cal, oriented lakes, many over 6 km long (Figure 1-2), cover up to 40% of 

 the land surface of the northern part of the Coastal Plain. The lakes are 

 oriented and elongated as a result of differential erosion at their north 

 and south ends (Carson and Hussey 1962, Sellmann et al. 1975). 



