Alaska Science: Minto Flats is home to hidden faults By NED ROZELL - Just over the hill from Fairbanks is a broad, swampy lowland pocked with lakes and sliced by crooked brown streams. You could hide Anchorage in Minto Flats, home to more moose, beavers and northern pike than people.

From left, Matt Gardine, Carl Tape and Celso Alvizuri float the Tanana River in summer 2013 as part of an exploratory trip to scout sites for seismic stations.
Photo by Michael West.

The spongy surface of the flats is good for a few things: making mosquitoes and hiding the effects of frequent earthquakes. Seismologists can’t see any giant rips on the self-healing surface, but they know from how the earth shakes that two long faults lurk deep beneath the muskeg.

Scientists are so interested in the fault zone (which produces many of the shakes we feel in Fairbanks) that four of them embarked on a raft trip last August. For a few days, they floated into the heart of one of the largest geologic basins in Alaska.

Carl Tape is a seismologist at the Geophysical Institute of the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Along with State Seismologist Michael West, seismologist Matt Gardine and graduate student Celso Alvizuri, Tape shoved a blue raft off the gravel in Nenana last August and floated the Tanana River to Manley Hot Springs.

The four men embarked on the river trip because they have been funded to install one dozen sensitive ground-motion detectors in what they call the Minto Flats seismic zone. The best way to scout the area was to let the Tanana River carry them as the braided waterway makes a 90-degree bend northward from the town of Nenana.

Tape, who grew up in Fairbanks, was surprised at the remote feeling of that 100-mile river stretch just a few minutes from Fairbanks by plane. As their 14-foot raft rotated in the current, the scientists heard the groan of fish wheels and steered clear of a few barges steaming toward Nenana. When they hit shore, they saw many sets of bear tracks pressed into gray mud.

The scientists explored high and dry spots where they might locate their broadband seismometers and where radio systems might broadcast ground-motion information toward the ridge upon which the Parks Highway runs from Fairbanks to Nenana. On that hilltop, other stations will repeat the data and send it back to the Alaska Earthquake Center in Fairbanks. - More...
Thursday PM - May 08, 2014

Alaska Agriculture: Raising poultry in the Interior takes pluck By NANCY TARNAI - Steve Davila knows his birds so well that he can tell what their moods are by observing them. “The chirps they make when they are happy are distinguishable from when they are cold or hot,” he said. “They can tell you a lot if you pay close attention to them.”

Steve Davila checks the chicks at Alaska Feed.

Davila, manager of Alaska Feed Co., is knee deep in chirpers this time of year with all the chicks, ducklings and goslings in the store’s bird barn. And when he gets home at night he has his own flock to take care of.

Growing up on a poultry farm in Lakewood, Washington, Davila was accustomed to being around birds and helping out. In addition to standard birds, the family raised ornamental pheasants.

The Air Force brought Davila to Fairbanks in 1985. He has been with the feed store six years. He raises turkeys, guinea fowl and chickens for eggs and meat. “I had 40 ducks one year, but my wife said no more; they are too messy,” he said.

Davila and his wife Carol have three daughters. The one still at home raises steers, lambs and pigs for the market auction at the Tanana Valley State Fair. Davila leads the East Hills 4-H Club. “It’s a lot of fun and it gives the kids something to do,” he said. “They learn so much with their market projects without even realizing it.”

Another volunteer role for Davila is serving as superintendent of the fair’s market auction and on the fair’s board of directors.

Building adequate housing for year-round birds is one of the greatest challenges for Interior farmers, Davila said. Cost is another. “This is not an economy project,” he said. Considering the price of feed and fuel, people don’t raise chickens in Fairbanks to save money. “Unlike the Lower 48, we’re never going to get chicken production for economy,” he said. “It’s just never going to pencil out.”

The quality of the meat and eggs makes it worthwhile . “I know what my birds are eating, so I know what I’m eating,” Davila said. - More...
Thursday PM - May 08, 2014

Columns - Commentary

Correction MONEY MATTERS: 10 STEPS TO A SECURE RETIREMENT By Mary Lynne Dahl, CFP® - Retiring, for most people, means to stop working for a wage. However, when you stop working, you stop getting a paycheck. So, then what? How will you pay the bills and preserve your lifestyle? This is the most important issue for anyone who is facing retirement. If you have not been saving and investing for this goal, you better wake up and get started now!

If you have been saving and investing for this goal, there will come a point when you will have to measure whether the money you have accumulated for this purpose is going to be adequate or not. This article will show you how to do this, step by step, using an example at the end of the article. First, however, we need to explain some basic concepts so that our example makes sense.

Decades ago, a retiring worker would have his or her Social Security, possibly an old-fashioned pension and maybe a little bit of savings, and this was usually enough. Guess what? Things have really changed! Today, very few workers have a pension. Many are unsure of Social Security, and of those who do expect to get it, most do not expect it to provide them with a lot of security. - More...
Tuesday PM - May 06, 2014