Oskar Dietrich von Engeln was a geologist and professor of geology best known for his study of geomorphology and the topography of New York State's Finger Lakes region. [1]
Von Engeln was admitted to Cornell as an undergraduate in 1904. While there,he studied under Ralph Stockman Tarr,the noted professor of geography. [1] He was a student assistant to Tarr during a 1909 expedition to Alaska,serving as photographer to document findings. [2]
In 1911,von Engeln completed his doctoral dissertation at Cornell with a study of glacier drainage at Alaska's Mount Saint Elias and the surrounding Yakutat Bay region. [3]
The O.D. von Engeln Preserve in Dryden,New York is named in honor of von Engeln. [4]
Southeast Alaska,often abbreviated to southeast or southeastern,and sometimes called the Alaska(n) panhandle,is the southeastern portion of the U.S. state of Alaska,bordered to the east and north by the northern half of the Canadian province of British Columbia. The majority of southeast Alaska is situated in Tlingit Aaní,much of which is part of the Tongass National Forest,the United States' largest national forest. In many places,the international border runs along the crest of the Boundary Ranges of the Coast Mountains. The region is noted for its scenery and mild,rainy climate.
The Tlingit or Lingít are Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast of North America and constitute two of the 231 federally recognized Tribes of Alaska. Although the majority,about 14,000 people,are Alaska Natives,there is a small minority,2,110,who are Canadian First Nations.
Hoonah–Angoon Census Area is a census area located in the U.S. state of Alaska. As of the 2020 census,the population was 2,365,up from 2,150 in 2010. It is part of the unorganized borough and therefore has no borough seat. Its largest community is the city of Hoonah.
The City and Borough of Yakutat is a borough in the state of Alaska. Yakutat was also the name of a former city within the borough. The name in Tlingit is Yaakwdáat. It is derived from an Eyak name,diyaʼqudaʼt,and was influenced by the Tlingit word yaakw.
The Tongass National Forest in Southeast Alaska is the largest U.S. National Forest at 16.7 million acres. Most of its area is temperate rain forest and is remote enough to be home to many species of endangered and rare flora and fauna. The Tongass,which is managed by the United States Forest Service,encompasses islands of the Alexander Archipelago,fjords and glaciers,and peaks of the Coast Mountains. An international border with Canada runs along the crest of the Boundary Ranges of the Coast Mountains. The forest is administered from Forest Service offices in Ketchikan. There are local ranger district offices located in Craig,Hoonah,Juneau,Ketchikan,Petersburg,Sitka,Thorne Bay,Wrangell,and Yakutat.
Katmai National Park and Preserve is an American national park and preserve in southwest Alaska,notable for the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes and for its brown bears. The park and preserve encompass 4,093,077 acres,which is between the sizes of Connecticut and New Jersey. Most of the national park is a designated wilderness area. The park is named after Mount Katmai,its centerpiece stratovolcano. The park is located on the Alaska Peninsula,across from Kodiak Island,with headquarters in nearby King Salmon,about 290 miles (470 km) southwest of Anchorage. The area was first designated a national monument in 1918 to protect the area around the major 1912 volcanic eruption of Novarupta,which formed the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes,a 40-square-mile (100 km2),100-to-700-foot-deep pyroclastic flow. The park includes as many as 18 individual volcanoes,seven of which have been active since 1900.
The Saint Elias Mountains are a subgroup of the Pacific Coast Ranges,located in southeastern Alaska in the United States,Southwestern Yukon and the very far northwestern part of British Columbia in Canada. The range spans Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve in the United States and Kluane National Park and Reserve in Canada and includes all of Glacier Bay National Park in Alaska. In Alaska,the range includes parts of the city/borough of Yakutat and the Hoonah-Angoon and Valdez-Cordova census areas.
Aniakchak National Monument and Preserve is a U.S. National Monument and National Preserve,consisting of the region around the Aniakchak volcano on the Aleutian Range of south-western Alaska. It has erupted at least 40 times over the last 10,000 years. The 601,294-acre (243,335 ha) monument is one of the least-visited places in the National Park System due to its remote location and difficult weather. The area was proclaimed a National Monument on December 1,1978,and established as a National Monument and Preserve on December 2,1980. The National Monument encompasses 137,176 acres (55,513 ha) and the preserve 464,118 acres (187,822 ha). Visitation to Aniakchak is the lowest of all areas of the U.S. National Park System,according to the NPS,with only 100 documented recreational visits in 2017. Most visitors fly into Surprise Lake inside Aniakchak Crater,but the frequent fog and other adverse weather conditions make landing in the lake difficult. It is also possible to fly into the nearby village of Port Heiden and proceed overland to the Aniakchak Crater.
Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve is an American national park located in Southeast Alaska west of Juneau. President Calvin Coolidge proclaimed the area around Glacier Bay a national monument under the Antiquities Act on February 26,1925. Subsequent to an expansion of the monument by President Jimmy Carter in 1978,the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA) enlarged the national monument by 523,000 acres on December 2,1980,and created Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve. The national preserve encompasses 58,406 acres of public land to the immediate northwest of the park,protecting a portion of the Alsek River with its fish and wildlife habitats,while allowing sport hunting.
Wrangell–St. Elias National Park and Preserve is an American national park and preserve managed by the National Park Service in south central Alaska. The park and preserve were established in 1980 by the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act. The protected areas are included in an International Biosphere Reserve and are part of the Kluane/Wrangell–St. Elias/Glacier Bay/Tatshenshini-Alsek UNESCO World Heritage Site. The park and preserve form the largest area managed by the National Park Service with a total of 13,175,799.07 acres,an expanse larger than nine U.S. states and around the same size as Bosnia and Herzegovina or Croatia. 8,323,147.59 acres are designated as the national park,and the remaining 4,852,652.14 acres are designated as the preserve. The area designated as the national park alone is larger than the 47 smallest American national parks combined and is more than twice the size of all but two other national parks. Its area makes up over 15% of all national park designated land in the United States.
The Gulf of Alaska is an arm of the Pacific Ocean defined by the curve of the southern coast of Alaska,stretching from the Alaska Peninsula and Kodiak Island in the west to the Alexander Archipelago in the east,where Glacier Bay and the Inside Passage are found.
Glacier Bay Basin in southeastern Alaska,in the United States,encompasses the Glacier Bay and surrounding mountains and glaciers,which was first proclaimed a U.S. National Monument on February 25,1925,and which was later,on December 2,1980,enlarged and designated as the Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve under the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act,covering an area of 3,283,000 acres. In 1986,UNESCO declared an area of 57,000 acres within a World Biosphere Reserve. This is the largest UNESCO protected biosphere in the world. In 1992,UNESCO included this area as a part of a World Heritage site,extending over an area of 24,300,000-acre (98,000 km2) which also included the Wrangell-St. Elias National Park,Kluane National Park (Canada) and Tatshenshini-Alsek Park (Canada). Part of the National Park is also designated a Wilderness area covering 2,658,000 acres.
Mount Wrangell,is a massive shield volcano located in Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve in southeastern Alaska,United States. The shield rises over 12,000 feet (3,700 m) above the Copper River to its southwest. Its volume is over 220 cubic miles (920 km3),making it more than twice as massive as Mount Shasta in California,the largest stratovolcano by volume in the Cascades. It is part of the Wrangell Volcanic Field,which extends for more than 250 kilometers (160 mi) across Southcentral Alaska into the Yukon Territory in Canada,and has an eruptive history spanning the time from Pleistocene to Holocene.
The food of the Tlingit people,an indigenous group of people from Alaska,British Columbia,and the Yukon,is a central part of Tlingit culture,and the land is an abundant provider. A saying amongst the Tlingit is that "When the tide goes out the table is set."This refers to the richness of intertidal life found on the beaches of Southeast Alaska,most of which can be harvested for food. Another saying is that "in Lingít Aaní you have to be an idiot to starve". Since food is so easy to gather from the beaches,a person who cannot feed himself at least enough to stay alive is considered a fool,perhaps mentally incompetent or suffering from very bad luck. Though eating off the beach could provide a fairly healthy and varied diet,eating nothing but "beach food" is considered contemptible among the Tlingit,and a sign of poverty. Shamans and their families were required to abstain from all food gathered from the beach,and men might avoid eating beach food before battles or strenuous activities in the belief that it would weaken them spiritually and perhaps physically as well. Thus for both spiritual reasons as well as to add some variety to the diet,the Tlingit harvest many other resources for food besides what they easily find outside their front doors. No other food resource receives as much emphasis as salmon;however,seal and game are both close seconds.
The 1958 Lituya Bay earthquake occurred on July 9,1958 at 22:15:58PST with a moment magnitude of 7.8 to 8.3 and a maximum Mercalli intensity of XI (Extreme). The strike-slip earthquake took place on the Fairweather Fault and triggered a rockslide of 30 million cubic meters and about 90 million tons into the narrow inlet of Lituya Bay,Alaska. The impact was heard 80 kilometers (50 mi) away,and the sudden displacement of water resulted in a megatsunami that washed out trees to a maximum elevation of 524 meters at the entrance of Gilbert Inlet. This is the largest and most significant megatsunami in modern times;it forced a re-evaluation of large-wave events and the recognition of impact events,rockfalls,and landslides as causes of very large waves.
The Juneau gold belt is located in the southeastern portion of the U.S. state of Alaska. This belt is approximately 100 miles (160 km) in length,north/northwest-trending,and extends from Berners Bay southeastward to Windham Bay,60 miles (97 km) southeast of Juneau,and includes Douglas Island. The belt contains over 200 gold-quartz-vein deposits with production nearing 7,000,000 ounces (200,000,000 g) of gold. More than three-quarters of Alaska's lode gold was mined from the Juneau gold belt.
The Portage Escarpment is a major landform in the U.S. states of Ohio,Pennsylvania,and New York which marks the boundary between the Till Plains to the north and west and the Appalachian Plateau to the east and south. The escarpment is the defining geological feature of New York's Finger Lakes region. Its proximity to Lake Erie creates a narrow but easily traveled route between upstate New York and the Midwest. Extensive industrial and residential development occurred along this route.
During September 1899 there was a series of severe earthquakes in the region around Yakutat Bay in Alaska. The most powerful of these occurred on September 3 and September 10 at about noon,local time. The area was sparsely populated and no fatalities were recorded,but the earthquakes were notable for the degree of elevation recorded,up to 47 feet,and for the effects on the glaciers in the region. Fieldwork on the effects of the earthquake was carried out between 1905 and 1910,and a summary report was published in 1912. The September 3rd large shock's magnitude is debated,but it ranges from 8.2–8.5. The second earthquake on September the 10th was also a comparably large shock,with magnitudes ranging from 8.2–8.6.
The Yakutat Tlingit Tribe is a federally recognized Tlingit Alaska Native tribal entity. Other federally recognized tribes with members of Tlingit heritage include the Central Council of the Tlingit &Haida Indian Tribes,the Douglas Indian Association,Skagway Village,the Organized Village of Kake,the Sitka Tribe of Alaska,and the Wrangell Cooperative Association.