There exists a geographic point where two of the largest countries in the world are
separated by less than three miles.
Russia (the world's largest country at 6,601,670 square miles) and the United States (the world's
fourth largest at 3,677,649 square miles) are only separated by a short distance but
are 21 hours apart in time.
Two small islands lie between central Siberia and the state of Alaska.
To the north is the Chukchi Sea, and to the south is the Bering Sea.
The International Date Line, which also serves as a border between Russia and the United
States, separates the two islands.
The two islands are separated by only 2.4 miles (3.8 kilometers).
Alaska has no land connection to the rest of the United States, but it is connected
to Russia, and under the right conditions, you can literally walk from one to the other.
But that is not the only surprising aspect of Alaska.
Scientists continue to make astonishing discoveries that they are unable to explain.
What have scientists recently discovered in Alaska, and why are they completely baffled
by it?
Join us in this video to learn about scientists' most terrifying discoveries in Alaska, which
might change everything!
Alaska, also known as "The Last Frontier" is the 49th state of the United States and
the only one separated from the others by land.
Its name derives from the Aleut word "Aleyska", which means "a great land".
When we say Alaska is huge, we mean it!
Alaska is by far the largest US state in terms of land area, with 663,300 square miles.
It is larger than the combined size of the next three largest US states, Texas, California,
and Montana!
If Alaska were a separate country, it would rank among the top twenty largest in the world.
In fact, Alaska contains more than 40% of the country's surface water resources.
It contains 3 million lakes larger than 5 acres, 12,000 rivers, and numerous creeks
and ponds.
Alaska also has the country's largest national forest.
Tongass National Forest is located in Alaska's capital, Juneau.
This vast area of 16.7 million acres is regarded as a must-see destination in Alaska.
Tongass National Park is home to a diverse range of flora and fauna.
On a tour, you may see wildlife such as beavers, foxes, deer, moose, and even grizzly bears!
As you are probably aware, the majority of Alaska is only accessible by air and sea.
It's not surprising, given its vast wilderness.
What's more, the state's capital, Juneau, is inaccessible by car!
So, how exactly do you get to Juneau?
It's really simple: just take a plane or a boat from a nearby city to the capital!
The first people arrived in what is now Alaska around 13,000 years ago.
They either travelled from what is now Russia, which was connected to Alaska by a 600-mile-wide
swath of land known as the Bering Land Bridge, or they sailed.
Russians came here in 1784, and the United States bought the area for two cents an acre
in 1867.
Many people thought the harsh environment was a bad investment until gold was discovered
in 1872.
Alaska became the 49th state of the United States in 1959.
Indigenous peoples such as the Inuit, Tlingit, Haida, Aleuts, Athabascans, and Yupik still
dwell here, and a major recent find by scientists has verified Alaska's continued occupancy.
According to a study published in the journal Nature, the skeletons of two ancient newborns
who lived and died in Alaska 11,500 years ago are helping to tell the narrative of the
ancient Beringian's, a previously unknown population.
Considering the Beringia land bridge between Russia and Alaska, this study was the first
genomic evidence that all Native Americans originated from the same group that crossed
the continent via land bridge.
Both newborns found in the Upward Sun River burial site in central Alaska's Tanana River
Valley were female.
The indigenous society gave them symbolic names like Dawn Twilight child-girl and Sunrise
child-girl.
The first kid died between the ages of 6 and 12 weeks, while the second died prematurely
at 30 weeks of development, never having had the chance to live.
Their DNA indicates that they were possibly first cousins.
Researchers were able to sequence the genome of the Sunrise child-girl known as USR1 using
her DNA.
Her ancestors were discovered to be Native Americans, but in an unusual way.
The DNA of USR1 led the researchers to assume they had identified a previously unknown genetic
community of Native Americans known as ancient Beringians, who constitute the oldest known
genetic ancestry of Native Americans.
The new data allows scientists to test and create models for determining when and where
population splits happened.
A population began to withdraw from Asia around 34 000 years ago, although genetic exchanges
persisted until 25 000 years ago, showing that they were in Alaska by then.
The change occurred 10 thousand years sooner than previously assumed, according to new
research.
Around 25 000 years ago, this group met another community of individuals who were more closely
connected to modern Europeans than to Asians.
This is how the Beringians emerged.
Based on what they learnt at the site, these people, including the ancient Beringians,
hunted bison, elk, hare, squirrels, and birds.
Despite having lived through six thousand years of temperature and vegetation change,
they changed their approach of using organized hunting groups, preparing the game they killed,
and delivering it to centrally positioned base camps such as the Upward Sun River site.
But what happened to the ancient Beringians?
Scientists are unsure how much ancient Beringian gene flow occurred with nearby peoples since
they lack samples from people in the region.
While scientists are aware that Alaska can be very volcanic, the imagery of a volcanic
explosion may not be conducive to the state's frigid weather, Alaska has reminded scientists
that a volcano may erupt after thousands of years of dormancy.
Fourpeaked volcano is a little-known volcano in the northeast section of Katmai National
Park.
With one probable exception, it was assumed to be dormant prior to the first historic
eruption in 2006.
It is made up of isolated and acidic rock outcrops that rise above Fourpeaked Glacier.
As a result, despite the fact that the surrounding Katmai volcanic system 100 kilometers to the
southwest and Augustine Volcano 70 kilometers to the north are, it was not directly monitored.
AVO received many citizen reports of a dark plume feeding from what seemed to be two sources
at Cape Douglas on the west side of Cook Inlet from Homer.
Due to its distance and miserable weather, the plume reached a height of more than six
kilometers, and it took three days to determine Fourpeaked was the source of the eruption
and another three days to disclose the source of the phreatic blast.
Fourpeaked volcano is located at the entrance to Cook Inlet on the west side of the Shelikof
Strait, just west of Kodiak Island, nearly 70 kilometers south of Augustine volcano,
155 kilometers southwest of Homer Alaska, 13 kilometers south of adjoining Mount Douglas
volcano, and 27 kilometers north of neighboring Kaguyak volcano and Caldera.
This part of the Alaskan Peninsula is extensively glaciated and has most likely been buried
in ice since the last ice age began more than 100 000 years ago.
As a result, anything approximating a volcano must be recently active, as the erosive activity
of glaciers will swiftly erode the soft materials that form the cones of these largely andesitic
volcanoes.
Mount Douglas is a glaciated stratovolcano to the north, with an active crater lake and
uneroded lava flows on its northwestern face.
They are also active fumaroles, but no eruptions have been documented.
Local Alaskans mistook Fourpeaked volcano for a series of rock outcroppings in the Fourpeaked
Glacier rather than a true stratovolcano.
It is an andesitic stratovolcano with substantial hydrothermal alteration of materials towards
the summit.
It stands at a height of 2105 meters.
Its greatest recent dormancy is estimated to have lasted 10,000 years.
Earlier eruptions' size and style are not well limited, and previous andesite and dacite
eruptions imply that eruptions can be explosive.
Fourpeaked volcano has only had three brief periods of historic activity.
The first incidence was a July 1965 report of steam and gas plumes near Fourpeaked's
summit; the second was a phreatic eruption on September 17th, 2006; and the latest occurrence
was a slight spike in seismicity between April and May of 2013.
Moreover, Alaska is home to a number of other frightening natural phenomena besides its
volcanoes.
What if you went outside and saw everything coated in a big bright orange slime?
Wouldn't it be better to go back to bed and sleep, hoping the nightmare is over by the
time you wake up?
A weird orange ooze washed up on the shores of Alaska's fishing village Kivalina one morning.
It was a colorful moldy substance that first covered the Harbor's rocks, but people discovered
the goo inside rain buckets and even on rooftops the next day after a downpour.
Despite the fact that the substance looked to be solid, one homeowner stated she couldn't
smell anything weird after sticking her palm into one of the goo-filled buckets.
Most of the orange goo had washed away a day or two later, and the leftovers had transformed
into clumpy dry powder, although there was a report of dead minnows recovered in the
lagoon the night the stuff appeared.
How did it get there is the question.
What was this mysterious orange goo?
After samples were sent to labs, experts were called to the scene.
The substance was not created by humans, according to preliminary examinations.
One of the theories about the origin of this mystery substance is that it came from space.
When Comet Elenin began to break into little fragments of ice and dust around the same
time as Alaska's unexplained goo problem, some immediately linked it.
Comet Elenin, officially known as C/2010 X1, was discovered while travelling through our
solar system by Russian astronomer Leonid Elenin.
However, it was believed that the comet would have a greater impact than merely the weird
orange sludge.
Elenin was predicted to cause a host of natural disasters, including earthquakes and odd gravitational
distortions.
Some media outlets even dubbed it the Doomsday Comet.
Another theory is that the substance was composed of innumerable minute eggs.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's original assessment was accurate, but when
the agency investigated the material further, they realized it was far more concerning.
They confirmed the presence of fungus spores that generate rust and are responsible for
the Luminous hue.
Rust fungus is a plant disease that causes discoloration on the leaves and stems before
generating spores that propagate the infection.
Part of the mystery remained, however, because scientists were unable to positively identify
the species of rust fungus.
The sample they tested did not match any of the comparative samples or anything else that
had been seen.
So, what exactly does it all mean?
Kivalina inhabitants mostly survive off the land, and many are concerned about the impact
of the goose on wildlife and vegetation, which dried powdery and presumably went airborne.
People who went berry picking over the weekend couldn't determine if the goo was on the fruit
or the eggs because they were the same color.
Officials in Alaska are debating the riddle among state departments in order to identify
what steps to take if a potential risk is found.
Let us know what you find most fascinating about Alaska in the comments section below