Skip to main content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.

Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( ) or https:// means you’ve safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

Skip to content

Alaska permafrost characterization: Geophysical and related field data collected from 2019-2020

Metadata Updated: July 6, 2024

Geophysical measurements were collected by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) at two sites in Interior Alaska in 2019 and 2020 for the purposes of imaging permafrost structure and quantifying variations in subsurface moisture content in relation to thaw features. In September 2019, electrical resistivity tomography (ERT) and downhole nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) data were used to quantify permafrost characteristics across the shorelines of Big Trail Lake, a thermokarst lake outside of Fairbanks, Alaska. Three 222 m ERT survey lines were collected perpendicular to the North, East, and South shorelines, and two 110 m lines were collected parallel to the southeast and northeast shorelines. Models of electrical resistivity produced from these data revealed the distribution of frozen and thawed soil to depths of 10-40 m below the surface. NMR data were collected within two 2.3 m deep boreholes adjacent to the East and North perpendicular ERT survey lines in September 2019 and logged again in March 2020. Additional one-time NMR measurements of liquid water content were collected in September 2019 within the lakebed sediments (0-25 cm depth) in approximately 2.5 m lateral increments moving away from the shorelines in the East and North, between 0 and 12 m from shore. These NMR transects roughly coincided with the perpendicular ERT lines. A separate ERT survey was conducted at the Bonanza Creek LTER (Long Term Ecological Research) in September 2019 and was a repeat of a previous ERT survey done in the same exact location three years prior. The survey line was 125 m in length and spanned the transition between burned and unburned forest. Models of electrical resistivity for this site imaged the structure of frozen and thawed soils to depths of 10-15 m. At both sites, manual permafrost-probe measurements of thaw depths were collected at set intervals along each ERT transect and used for comparison to the resistivity models.

Access & Use Information

Public: This dataset is intended for public access and use. License: No license information was provided. If this work was prepared by an officer or employee of the United States government as part of that person's official duties it is considered a U.S. Government Work.

Downloads & Resources

Dates

Metadata Created Date June 1, 2023
Metadata Updated Date July 6, 2024

Metadata Source

Harvested from DOI EDI

Additional Metadata

Resource Type Dataset
Metadata Created Date June 1, 2023
Metadata Updated Date July 6, 2024
Publisher U.S. Geological Survey
Maintainer
@Id http://datainventory.doi.gov/id/dataset/629cc6b4445d47e036c8ddc24f63a33a
Identifier USGS:5f44204682ce4c3d1222da05
Data Last Modified 20201116
Category geospatial
Public Access Level public
Bureau Code 010:12
Metadata Context https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.jsonld
Metadata Catalog ID https://datainventory.doi.gov/data.json
Schema Version https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
Catalog Describedby https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.json
Harvest Object Id 58174774-a9a6-4c60-affe-a89c6d4d7d1a
Harvest Source Id 52bfcc16-6e15-478f-809a-b1bc76f1aeda
Harvest Source Title DOI EDI
Metadata Type geospatial
Old Spatial -148.297121,64.711806,-147.817536,64.921413
Publisher Hierarchy White House > U.S. Department of the Interior > U.S. Geological Survey
Source Datajson Identifier True
Source Hash 309cd07ffdda47dd857bf4ed7a05f46dc60bec212d9afd2f0eb0226022354b8f
Source Schema Version 1.1
Spatial {"type": "Polygon", "coordinates": -148.297121, 64.711806, -148.297121, 64.921413, -147.817536, 64.921413, -147.817536, 64.711806, -148.297121, 64.711806}

Didn't find what you're looking for? Suggest a dataset here.