The Mystery of Alaska’s Orange Rivers Is Finally Solved

Arctic Rivers Are Bleeding Orange. Scientists Just Found the Toxic Origin

Not even the most remote, natural hotspots appear exempt from rising temperatures.

Why the Arctic's rivers are rusting now and where toxic orange water could spread next

Scientists have identified the two biggest reasons that once-pristine rivers across the Arctic are growing cloudy with toxic orange iron particles that smother insects and suffocate fish.

The mystery of Alaska’s orange rivers is finally solved

Alaska’s Arctic rivers have a big, orange problem. Previously clear rivers are turning a cloudy orange color due to iron particles, and it’s more than unsightly. The particles can suffocate fish and choke insects, threatening the food web and ecosystem as a whole.  Scientists have long pointed to previously frozen soil beginning to thaw as the potential culprit behind the contamination of rivers in northern Alaska’s remote Brooks Range, and a st…

Thawing permafrost is poisoning Alaska’s rivers

Over recent years, rivers that once ran clear through the Arctic wilderness have been turning a Trumpian shade of orange and scientists now say they have definitive evidence to explain why. The new study confirms what earlier research had suggested, that thawing permafrost is contaminating remote rivers, discolouring them with toxic iron particles that threaten entire aquatic ecosystems. The research, which was carried out in Alaska’s Brooks Ran…