Surface Geophysical Measurements for Locating and Mapping Ice-Wedges
With the presently observed trend of permafrost warming and degradation, the development and availability of effective tools to locate and map ice-rich soils and massive ground ice is of increasing importance. This paper presents a geophysical study of an area with polygonal landforms in order to te...
| Published in: | Cold Regions Engineering 2012 |
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| Main Authors: | , , , , |
| Format: | Other Non-Article Part of Journal/Newspaper |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
American Society of Civil Engineers
2012
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://orbit.dtu.dk/en/publications/ff740793-e6bb-4e05-9447-0cbce91fd8fd https://doi.org/10.1061/9780784412473.063 |
| Summary: | With the presently observed trend of permafrost warming and degradation, the development and availability of effective tools to locate and map ice-rich soils and massive ground ice is of increasing importance. This paper presents a geophysical study of an area with polygonal landforms in order to test the applicability of DC electrical resistivity tomography (ERT) and Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) to identifying and mapping ice-wedge occurrences. The site is located in Central West Greenland, and the ice-wedges are found in a permafrozen peat soil with an active layer of about 30 cm. ERT and GPR measurements give a coherent interpretation of possible ice-wedge locations, and active layer probing show a tendency for larger thaw depth in the major trench systems consistent with a significant temperature (at 10 cm depth) increase in these trenches identified by thermal profiling. Three shallow boreholes were drilled during the campaign but did not encounter ice-wedges. As the final interpretation did not predict ice-wedge occurrence at the borehole locations, results not contradictive – but more data is needed for final validation. |
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