On the potential for a bottom active layer below coastal permafrost: the impact of seawater on permafrost degradation imaged by electrical resistivity tomography (Hornsund, SW Spitsbergen)

Abstract

Krzysztof (2017) On the potential for a bottom active layer below coastal permafrost: the impact of seawater on permafrost degradation imaged by electrical resistivity tomography (Hornsund, SW Spitsbergen Northumbria University has developed Northumbria Research Link (NRL) to enable users to access the University's research output. Copyright © and moral rights for items on NRL are retained by the individual author(s) and/or other copyright owners. Single copies of full items can be reproduced, displayed or performed, and given to third parties in any format or medium for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-profit purposes without prior permission or charge, provided the authors, title and full bibliographic details are given, as well as a hyperlink and/or URL to the original metadata page. The content must not be changed in any way. Full items must not be sold commercially in any format or medium without formal permission of the copyright holder. The full policy is available online: http://nrl.northumbria.ac.uk/policies.html This document may differ from the final, published version of the research and has been made available online in accordance with publisher policies. To read and/or cite from the published version of the research, please visit the publisher's website (a subscription may be required.

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

“…Although electrical measurements from permafrost environments can show very high resistivity (e.g., Minsley et al, ), the values measured in our study are consistent with direct current electrical resistivity measurements collected from a saline permafrost environment in Barrow, Alaska, USA (Overduin et al, ) and previously in Adventdalen by Harada and Yoshikawa (), who observed a resistivity of 7.5 Ωm at a depth of 30 m, and Ross et al (), who observed resistivities from ~10 to 400 Ωm associated with two pingos (Hytte and Longyear Pingos). More recently, based on electrical resistivity imaging, Kasprzak et al () postulated the existence of unfrozen saline pore water near coastal zones in southern Svalbard. From our SNMR measurements we are able to confirm that such low resistivity values can indeed be attributed to the existence of unfrozen saline pore fluid.…”

New fjords, new coasts, new landscapes: The geomorphology of paraglacial coasts formed after recent glacier retreat in Brepollen (Hornsund, southern Svalbard)

“…It is likely that deglaciation of Brepollen (<80-100 years) was too recent to allow development of coastal permafrost. In nearby Hornsund fjord, geophysical surveying of the coastal zone by Kasprzak et al (2017) revealed a lack of frozen ground conditions in rockdominated capes and limited possibility for coastward aggradation of permafrost due to seawater influence. Such a lack of frozen ground conditions is an important difference between the coasts of High Arctic archipelagos (e.g.…”

High Arctic coasts at risk—the case study of coastal zone development and degradation associated with climate changes and multidirectional human impacts in Longyearbyen (Adventfjorden, Svalbard)

“…In general, over the last decade, Svalbard coastal studies have been concentrated on the coastal zone response to shifts in sediment supply associated with changes in local ice masses and paraglaciation (e.g., Bourriquen et al, 2016;Mercier & Laffly, 2005;Sessford, Strzelecki, & Hormes, 2015;Strzelecki et al, 2018;Zagórski, 2011); ephemeric pulses of sediments from snow-fed streams (Lønne & Nemec, 2004;Strzelecki, Long, & Lloyd, 2017); or the controls of coastal permafrost development . Recent years had also brought some advances in local rocky coast systems that dominate over coastal landscape in numerous Svalbard fjords (e.g., Kasprzak et al, 2017;Strzelecki, 2011;Strzelecki, 2017;Strzelecki et al, 2017;Świrad, Migoń, & Strzelecki, 2017). Most recently, Jaskólski, Pawłowski, and Strzelecki (2017) reported on the impact of geohazards including coastal changes on the state of abandoned Arctic town-Pyramiden in Northern Billefjorden.…”