| Summary: | The island of Spitsbergen, which makes up the largest portion of the Svalbard archipelago, is located in the high arctic, between 74° and 81° north. This high latitude Arctic environment provides the means for widespread permafrost formation. Currently, Svalbard is 60% glaciated, leaving 40% and approximately 25,000km as a permafrost and periglacial environment (Humlum, 2003: 199). Glaciers, permafrost, and periglacial features can all be widely observed on Svalbard. This study will look at a system of karst lakes found in an active and continuous permafrost zone on Svalbard. Karst is a globally spread phenomena which commonly occurs in regions consisting of carbonate rocks and evaporites when weathering and erosion occurs (Ritter et al, 2006: 407). Although karst is found in every region on earth, it is mostly found in temperate or tropical climates, because moderate temperatures, humidity, high precipitation, free flowing water, and high vegetation levels are all seen as favorable factors for formation (Ritter et al, 2006: 412). Karst is not nearly as frequently found in Arctic climates, due to the typical Arctic conditions of extremely low temperature, low precipitation, frozen water, and low vegetation being unfavorable for the formation of karst features. There have been relatively few studies of karst features occurring in High-Arctic environments. These studies have been mostly concentrated in Canada, the United States, Russia, and Svalbard. It was originally thought that only thermokarst features could form in the arctic, and true karst could not exist, because the chemical weathering needed to form karst was prevented by permafrost (French, 2007: 69). Thermokarst is not related to karst, and has nothing to do with the solubility and weathering of limestone or evaporites. The relationship of the two names can be explained, because the thaw of permafrost leads to thermokarst features, including the collapse, subsidence, erosion, and instability of the ground surface, which would appear similar to the ...
|
|---|