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Imnaviat Creek is located in Alaska, north of the Brooks Range in the Kuparuk basin near Lake Toolik and the Toolik Field Station. The Kuparuk River has its headwaters in the Brooks Range and drains through the north of Alaska into the Arctic Ocean. Within these headwaters lies the Imnaviat basin (2.2km^2) at N68°37´ and W149°18´ at an elevation of 930m (a.s.l.). Imnaviat Creek is embedded in piedmont hills with a predominant soil of porous organic peat underlain by silt and glacial till. Water tracks run down the hill in parallel zones with a spacing of approximately 10m. Precipitation falls throughout the whole year, 66% of which falls during the summer season. The snow season starts at the beginning of September and frequently ends by the first week of June. The mean annual temperature is -7.4°C and the maximum thaw depth of permafrost is 25 to 100cm depending on vegetation, slope and soil type. Typical vegetation types are wet sedge in the riparian zone, tussock tundra in the mid slopes and dry heath near the hilltops (VanBuuren, 2007).
