Produced by: Mohsin Shaikh
Credit: Josh Koch, U.S. Geological Survey
Once-pristine Arctic streams are now running orange with oxidized metals—like acid mine runoff with no mine in sight, just thawing permafrost bleeding iron and copper.
Credit: Josh Koch, U.S. Geological Survey
Permafrost melt is exposing ancient mineral deposits, unleashing acidity and heavy metals that are poisoning fish habitats and turning entire ecosystems upside down.
Credit: Ken Hill/National Park Service
Chum salmon and Arctic grayling are vanishing. Oxygen levels are plunging. Indigenous food chains are crumbling—this isn’t future climate threat, it’s now.
From zinc to aluminum, metals once locked in frozen soil are pouring into Alaska’s watersheds, contaminating rivers across the Brooks Range.
Credit: Ken Hill/National Park Service
This isn’t a one-time spill—it’s a geological unraveling. Once thaw begins, there’s no going back. The Arctic’s transformation is locked in.
Credit: Josh Koch, U.S. Geological Survey
Like a natural chemical spill with no cleanup crew, the permafrost thaw is releasing toxic metals into remote rivers—killing life, unseen and unchecked.
Credit: Josh Koch, U.S. Geological Survey
The orange isn’t just ugly—it signals a biological crisis. Metal-laced water is starving fish of oxygen and suffocating salmon eggs in sludge.
The fish look healthy—for now. But disrupted spawning, collapsing food webs, and metal accumulation hint at long-term damage we haven’t begun to measure.
Even Alaska’s wildest places aren’t immune. These orange rivers are not a glitch—they’re a signal, warning us that the planet’s deep freeze is ending.
Credit: Ken Hill/National Park Service