Combined Geophysical Measurements Provide Evidence for Unfrozen Water in Permafrost in the Adventdalen Valley in Svalbard

Keating, Kristina and Binley, Andrew Mark and Bense, Victor and Van Dam, Remke and Christiansen, Hanne (2018) Combined Geophysical Measurements Provide Evidence for Unfrozen Water in Permafrost in the Adventdalen Valley in Svalbard. Geophysical Research Letters, 45 (15). pp. 7606-7614. ISSN 0094-8276

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Abstract

Quantifying the unfrozen water content of permafrost is critical for assessing impacts of surface warming on the reactivation of groundwater flow and release of greenhouse gasses from degrading permafrost. Unfrozen water content was determined along an ~12-km transect in the Adventdalen valley in Svalbard, an area with continuous permafrost, using surface nuclear magnetic resonance and controlled source audio-magnetotelluric data. This combination of measurements allowed for differentiation of saline from fresh pore water, and frozen from unfrozen pore water. Above the limit of Holocene marine transgression, no unfrozen water was detected, associated with high electrical resistivity. Below the marine limit, within several kilometers of the coast, up to ~10% unfrozen water content was detected, associated with low resistivity values indicating saline pore water. These results provide evidence for unfrozen water within continuous, thick permafrost in coastal settings, which has implications for groundwater flow and greenhouse gas release in similar Arctic environments.

Item Type:
Journal Article
Journal or Publication Title:
Geophysical Research Letters
Additional Information:
An edited version of this paper was published by AGU. Copyright 2018 American Geophysical Union. Keating, K., Binley, A., Bense, V., Van Dam, R. L., & Christiansen, H. H. (2018). Combined geophysical measurements provide evidence for unfrozen water in permafrost in the Adventdalen valley in Svalbard. Geophysical Research Letters, 45. https://doi.org/10.1029/2017GL076508 To view the published open abstract, go to http://dx.doi.org and enter the DOI.
Uncontrolled Keywords:
/dk/atira/pure/subjectarea/asjc/1900/1908
Subjects:
?? arcticcoastal permafrost svalbard snmr csamtgeophysicsgeneral earth and planetary sciencesearth and planetary sciences(all) ??
ID Code:
126766
Deposited By:
Deposited On:
07 Aug 2018 08:22
Refereed?:
Yes
Published?:
Published
Last Modified:
16 Jul 2024 10:47