Latest Bering Strait Stories

A rapid increase in shipping in the formerly ice-choked waterways of the Arctic poses a significant increase in risk to the region's marine mammals and the local communities that rely on them for food security and cultural identity, according to an Alaska Native groups and the Wildlife Conservation Society who convened at a recent workshop. The workshop—which ran from March 12-14—examined the potential impacts to the region's wildlife and highlighted priorities for future management of...

BERLIN and WALES, Alaska, August 16, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Constantin Bisanz, founder of the online community brands4friends, and his companions, the brothers Geza and Andre Scholtz, made history with a very special record. They were the first to cover the distance to the international dateline in the Arctic Ocean between Alaska and Russia by kite board. On the more than 70 km distance, the athletes reached a record speed of 40 km/h average - only driven by wind and body...

ZURICH, July 27, 2010 /PRNewswire/ -- A team of adventurers with the motto of "Follow Your Convictions" has set out to cross the Bering Strait by kiteboard, setting three world records in the process: 1. The first crossing of the Bering Strait by kiteboard. 2. The first crossing from America to Asia by kiteboard. 3. The first crossing of the International Date Line by kiteboard. "If these extreme athletes are successful in their expedition, they will go down in...

Researchers say that a scientific reconstruction of one of the oldest sets of human remains found in the Americas supports theories that the first people who came to the hemisphere migrated from a broader area than once thought. Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History released photos on Thursday of the reconstructed image of a woman who probably lived on Mexico's Caribbean coast 10,000 to 12,000 years ago.  Anthropologist have believed for a while that humans migrated to...

In a vivid example of how a small geographic feature can have far-reaching impacts on climate, new research shows that water levels in the Bering Strait helped drive global climate patterns during ice age episodes dating back more than 100,000 years.The international study, led by scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), found that the repeated opening and closing of the narrow strait due to fluctuating sea levels affected currents that transported heat and salinity...

Royal Dutch Shell's Alaska manager said the company still intends to develop a major new source of production in the Arctic waters off the Alaskan coast despite last week's decision from an appeals court in Washington, D.C. that ruled such activity to be illegal."We still have every intention of pursuing a drilling program in the Beaufort and the Chukchi," Pete Slaiby, general manager of Shell in Alaska, told the Anchorage Chamber of Commerce.The court ruling on Friday overturned...

As the Arctic Ocean warms this century, shellfish, snails and other animals from the Pacific Ocean will resume an invasion of the northern Atlantic that was interrupted by cooling conditions three million years ago, predict Geerat Vermeij, professor of geology at the University of California, Davis, and Peter Roopnarine at the California Academy of Sciences.Climate models predict a nearly ice-free Arctic Ocean by 2050. That will restore conditions that last existed during the mid-Pliocene era...

GAINESVILLE, Fla. -- The human journey from Asia to the New World was interrupted by a 20,000-year layover in Beringia, a once-habitable region that today lies submerged under the icy waters of the Bering Strait.Furthermore, the New World was colonized by approximately 1,000 to 5,000 people "” a substantially higher number than the 100 or fewer individuals of previous estimates.The developments, to be reported by University of Florida Genetics Institute scientists in the open-access...

The epic journey by which the Americas were first settled has been a great mystery for centuries. Did it happen by land or by sea? Did it happen one dozen or so millennia ago or three dozen? The answer might be "yes." New findings reveal the settling of the New World did not come in a single burst, as is suggested by most theories, but was, in a way, a play with three acts, each separated by thousands of generations. The first stage of this voyage involved a gradual migration of...

ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- In what some scientists see as another alarming consequence of global warming, thousands of Pacific walruses above the Arctic Circle were killed in stampedes earlier this year after the disappearance of sea ice caused them to crowd onto the shoreline in extraordinary numbers.The deaths took place during the late summer and fall on the Russian side of the Bering Strait, which separates Alaska from Russia."It was a pretty sobering year - tough on walruses," said...