The role of tundra burning in carbon cycling: radio-carbon analysis of recent burns in the Noatak National Preserve, Alaska

Post Date

June 21st 2011

Application Due Date

June 28th 2011

Funding Opportunity Number

E11AC60520

CFDA Number(s)

15.945

Funding Instrument Type(s)

Cooperative Agreement

Funding Activity Categories

Natural Resources

Number of Awards

1

Eligibility Categories

Other

This is a "Notice of Intent" of a single source task agreement award to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL under the Great Rivers Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit. The PI at the University of Illinois, Department of Plant Biology, has the expertise, graduate students, and facilities to conduct the work and analyses as described in the task items. The PI and his students have completed several projects to determine ages of past fires in tundra and boreal ecosystems in Alaska, utilizing carbon sampling of paleo-lake core sediments. This research project expands into determining carbon ages of organic soil materials for emissions.

Funding

• Estimated Total Funding:

  $44650

• Award Range:

  $0 - $44650

Grant Description

The primary objective for wildland fire in Noatak National Preserve (NOAT) is to maintain the area╔к_s bio-diversity through natural wildfire while also ensuring the safety of life, property, and sensitive resources (Western Arctic Parklands FMP, 2009). Tundra fires, which are common in Noatak National Preserve, often burn into the organic soil material which may be storing ancient carbon. We propose to address this by collecting charcoal samples from the 2010 burns in NOAT for 14C analysis. The 14C data will allow us to answer the question: What is the age of organic matter (OM) consumed during a tundra fire? At 3-4 fires within NOAT six duff/soil monoliths will be collected, from 4 burned and 2 unburned adjacent areas. These samples will be 14C-aged to: 1) provide the age range of oldest burned soils (and thus oldest carbon that was emitted off the fires) and 2) estimate the age distribution of unburned organic soils that could be consumed in future fires.

Contact Information

• Agency

  Department of the Interior

• Office:

  National Park Service

• Agency Contact:

  Tonya Bradley
  Contract Specialist
  Phone 402-661-1656

• Agency Mailing Address:

  Help Desk

• Agency Email Address:

  tonya_bradley@nps.gov