Delta Junction NEON - United States of America

The Delta Junction field site is located 100 miles southeast of Fairbanks on land owned by the Federal Bureau of Land Management and surrounded on all sides by Fort Greely, an active U.S. Army base. Fort Greeley is a launch site for anti-ballistic missiles and home to the Cold Regions Test Center (CRTC), where military systems are tested for performance in extreme cold conditions and soldiers conduct training exercises. This is the only Taiga field site that does not have an underlying permafrost layer. Tall spruce trees grow here in a thin layer of soil that lies overtop a gravel bed left behind by a prehistoric river. In contrast to the tussocks that characterize most Taiga landscapes, the ground here is flat and easy to traverse. Part of the land has been burned by lighting strikes. DEJU covers 29.9 km2 (11.5 square miles) and includes a 72' meteorological/flux tower and an array of soil sensors. In the tower airshed, field scientists have established 20 tower base plots, 30 more distributed base plots, and several bird and mammal grids and tick and mosquito collection plots are positioned throughout the field site.