Major Coastal Erosion near Kotzebue

Observation by Jimmy Evak:

I have never seen such rapid erosion of the coast in my life near Kotzebue. It's always eroding but these past few years it seems to have sped up. This particular shot is about a mile past Sadie Creek towards Cape Blossom near Kotzebue. Permafrost can be seen in between mud layers. This erosion seems to be about a hundred or so feet in towards the land and still falling.

Cape Blossom itself seems to be even worse, as I recollect because we used to climb Cape Blossom to look out towards the ocean before we went seal hunting.

Jacquelyn Overbeck, Alaska Division of Geological & Geophysical Surveys Coastal Hazards Program Manager, writes:

In follow up to the post on June 30, 2017, the Alaska Division of Geological & Geophysical Surveys (DGGS) reached out to the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) and interpreted resources from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). The USGS recently released a report on shoreline change for northwest Alaska, at https://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2019/1146/ofr20191146.pdf. In the report, rates of erosion at Cape Blossom range from 3-10 feet per year from 1950-2016 (see page 40 of the report). South of Cape Blossom erosion rates reached between 10-16 feet per year from 1950-2016. UAF scientists were contacted in regard to erosion from 2016-2020 which they may be able to interpret using satellite imagery.

Cape Blossom is subject to coastal erosion from oceanographic processes, but also from thermal degradation of ice-rich permafrost. There are no monitoring sites at Cape Blossom, however, DGGS has been monitoring coastal flooding at Kotzebue, and has photos of past storms at http://maps.dggs.alaska.gov/photodb/#show=96&search=storm%20Kotzebue. DGGS must analyze the historical record of flooding to determine the magnitude and frequency of coastal storms at Kotzebue. UAF Geophysical Institute permafrost monitoring sites near Selawik show that the ground did not completely re-freeze during the winters of 2016, 2017, and 2018 (data is yet to be collected for the winter of 2019) and is following a warming trend.

Additional information about how to monitor coastal flooding and erosion can be found at: http://dggs.alaska.gov/hazards/coastal/monitoring.html and about warming permafrost here: https://permafrost.gi.alaska.edu/.

Comments from LEO Editors:

Two other observations of coastal erosion near Cape Blossom have been posted to the LEO Network. In 2015, Maija Lukin submitted the first observation of erosion near Cape Blossom, writing that erosion near the Cape is significant because it was identified as a possible location for a deep-water port. In 2017, Jacqueline Schaeffer documented further erosion around the Cape. Jacqueline Overbeck, DGGS Coastal Hazards Program Manager, wrote that preliminary investigations show erosion rates to be between 1.5-4 feet per year in this area.