This material site was developed by scraping 1.5 ha across the entire 

 floodplain width. Scraping apparently occurred in the active channel and on 

 adjacent mid-channel and lateral bars. Vegetative and overburden clearing 

 was not necessary because the site was sparsely vegetated prior to gravel 

 removal. Mining was conducted at this location in the late I950's during 

 construction of the Nome-Taylor Highway. Access was via a short 60-m gravel 

 road leading from the highway. A gravel fill ramp protected the I . 5-m in- 

 cised floodplain bank. There was no evidence of site rehabilitation; the 

 access road remains and its end has been eroded by the river. Material 

 stockpiles and overburden berms were not observed in the floodplain. Various 

 aspects of this site are shown in Figure 25. 



NORTH SLOPE 



General Description of Region 



Eight gravel removal sites from two North Slope physiographic prov- 

 inces, the Arctic Coastal Plain (ACP) and Arctic Foothills (AFH), were 

 included in this study (Wahrhaftig 1965). Both provinces are underlain 

 by continuous permafrost. The study sites at Ugnuravik River and Kuparuk 

 River are in the Teshekpuk Section of the ACP wh i le the Skeetercake Creek 

 site is in the White Hills Section. Aufeis Creek, Sagavan i rk tok River, and 

 Kavik River sites are in the Northern Section of the Arctic Foothills Prov- 

 ince while the Ivishak River and Shaviovik River sites are near the border 

 between the two provinces. The Teshekpuk Section of the ACP Province is flat 

 and poorly drained, being very marshy in the summer (Figure 3). The poor 

 drainage results in part from a continuous permafrost layer from 0.2 to 

 1.2 m beneath the surface. Ice wedge polygons, beaded streams, and elongated 

 thaw lakes are common in this area. Pingos and incised river channels pro- 

 vide the only relief to the flat terrain. The study sites in this section 

 are in an area of coastal delta deposits of i nterstrat i f i ed alluvial and 

 marine sediments with some local glacial drift deposits. 



In the White Hills Section of the ACP Province, the surficial geology 

 contains areas of undifferentiated alluvium and colluvium consisting of 



42 



