Alaska North Slope

Landsat 7 false-color image of the North Slope. The blue parts are ice. The Brooks Range is visible at the bottom. (June 2001)

Alaska North Slope, Spring 1950.

The Alaska North Slope is a region of the U.S. state of Alaska. It is on the northern slope of the Brooks Range along the coast of the Arctic Ocean.

The North Slope is known for having lots of oil. The National Petroleum Reserve–Alaska and the Prudhoe Bay Oil Field are the two biggest areas where oil is found. The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is there also, and there has been a lot of debate about drilling for oil there. The oil from the North Slope is pumped south in pipes, called the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System, to Valdez where it is loaded onto ships.

Because the Alaska North Slope is very far north, it gets very cold there. Only the top of the soil, called tundra, melts each season. Because of this, most of the soil is frozen all the time. This frozen soil is called permafrost. On top of the permafrost, water flows in shallow braided streams. Some of it goes into ponds.

Alaska North Slope Media

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  A map of northern Alaska; the dotted line shows the southern boundary of the North Slope. The National Petroleum Reserve–Alaska is to the West, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to the east, and Prudhoe Bay is between them.

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  Map from the US Bureau of Land Management showing structures that create the oil fields in Alaska

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  North Slope geologic cross section

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  Geophysical Service Inc. seismic exploration crew, Deadhorse, Alaska, 1981

References

• northslope.org, North Slope Science Initiative official website
• "North Slope of Alaska". NASA Earth Observatory newsroom. 2006-02-19. Archived from the original on 2008-09-24. Retrieved 2009-12-22.

Other websites

Media related to Alaska North Slope at Wikimedia Commons