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TUNDRA Siberia's tundra consists of thousands of square miles of bare rock, gravelly mountain slopes, dun-colored sedge meadows, and river valleys. We left the last real tree behind days ago, and will probably not see another until were about fifty miles east of Nome, Alaska. Now the tallest tree is a willow; it's a few inches high. From this height, the low-lying terrain looks like the back of an alligator: it's a pattern of ice-wedge squares and hexagons roughly thirty meters wide. These topographical features develop where sediment is fairly thick and Fahrenheit temperatures average at least 8-10 degrees below freezing. |
