A team at The Ohio State University's Byrd Polar and Climate Research Center led by Jason Cervenec, the center's education and outreach director, in collaboration with Thomas Douglas at the U.S. Army Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory (CRREL), Anna Liljedahl, at the Woodwell Climate Research Center and team members Jennifer Moss and Eric Lonn from eCampus at the University of Alaska Fairbanks released a virtual tour of the CRREL Permafrost Tunnel located near Fairbanks, Alaska. The virtual tour was developed to provide the public with a greater understanding of permafrost as part of the National Science Foundation-funded Permafrost Discovery Gateway, which aims to enable the creation and discovery of big geospatial data across the Arctic permafrost region.

The tour is currently available for exploration on any device using a web browser, including desktops, laptops, tablets, and smartphones. In addition, for a fully immersive experience, the tour may be explored with a VR headset.

The tour is available for access via Permafrost Discovery Gateway. In addition, the entire collection of virtual tours of Earth's icy landscapes is available via the NSF-funded Virtual Ice project.

News Release

The image on the right: is a view of the interior of the tunnel as seen through the virtual tour with navigation and media buttons as well as the tour map. The two inset images show the exterior of the tunnel.