An isotopic and geochemical study of snowmelt runoff in a small arctic watershed

‘Old’ water contributions to snowmelt runoff in a stream can be defined as water which was stored in the catchment prior to the start of the runoff event in question. We used mass balance techniques for natural oxygen-18 and several chemical parameters (electrical conductivity, Ca and Mg) to estimate the magnitude and timing of ‘old’ water contributions to snowmelt runoff in the Apex River watershed during the 1983 field season. The Apex River catchment is located in the southern part of Baffin Island, Northwest Territories, Canada. The watershed has an area of 60 km², it is in the zone of continuous permafrost, and the geology is dominantly Precambrian gneiss with sporadic, thin, glacial overburden. The isotopic data indicate that for the snowmelt season of 1983 (third highest peak discharge of 11 years of record), approximately 50 per cent of the peak stream discharge consisted of ‘old’ water. Our data also suggest that about 60 per cent of the entire 1983 hydrograph was ‘old’ water. The chemical parameters give old water contributions which are at least 10 per cent less than the isotopically-derived estimate, but they are consistent with the isotopic estimate during peak flow.     

Geocryological characteristics of the upper permafrost in a tundra-forest transition of the Indigirka River Valley,Russia

Understanding geocryological characteristics of frozen sediment, such as cryostratigraphy, ice content, and stable isotope ratio of ground ice, is essential to predicting consequences of projected permafrost thaw in response to global warming. These characteristics determine thermokarst extent and controls hydrological regime—and hence vegetation growth—especially in areas of high latitude; it also yields knowledge about the history of changes in the hydrological regime. To obtain these fundamental data, we sampled and analyzed unfrozen and frozen surficial sediments from 18 boreholes down to 1–2.3 m depth at five sites near Chokurdakh, Russia. Profiles of volumetric ice content in upper permafrost excluding wedge ice volume showed large variation, ranging from 40 to 96%, with an average of 75%. This large amount of ground ice was in the form of ice lenses or veins forming well-developed cryostructures, mainly due to freezing of frost-susceptible sediment under water-saturated condition. Our analysis of geocryological characteristics in frozen ground including ice content, cryostratigraphy, soil mechanical characteristics, organic matter content and components, and water stable isotope ratio provided information to reconstruct terrestrial paleo-environments and to estimate the influence of recent maximum thaw depth, microtopography, and flooding upon permafrost development in permafrost regions of NE Russia.     

Recent air temperature changes in the permafrost landscapes of northeastern Eurasia

In the last two decades, climatic change has resulted in increased cryogenic activity in northeastern Eurasia, with adverse consequences for landscapes and socio-economic systems in the permafrost zone.The main purpose of this study was to assess the recent phases of warming, starting with Arctic warming. We performed a spatiotemporal analysis of climatic conditions during phases of maximum warming (i.e., 1935–1945, 1988–1995, and 2005–2009) in northeastern Eurasia and compared the magnitude of warming and its effect on permafrost among these critical periods. Our observations of permafrost landscape dynamics confirmed that the last two warming phases have played major roles in changing the environment.Data analysis has revealed regional patterns in the intensity of warming. Areas south of 60–62° latitude experienced no rise in air temperature during the Arctic warming period (1935–1945), whereas during 1988–1995, the center of warming shifted to the south of northeastern Eurasia. The last phase of warming (2005–2009) was characterized by maximum values of mean annual air temperature and the thawing index, and a decrease in the freezing index throughout northeastern Eurasia.     

Enigmatic fractures in Pliocene sands of Suffolk,U.K: hydrofracked permafrost with later warmer-climate calcrete fills?

Two types of fracture occur in the Pliocene (Red Crag and Coralline Crag) shelly sands of south-east Suffolk. Post-lithification, planar fractures of tectonic origin are confined to the more lithified Coralline Crag. More irregular fractures containing calcretized sediment-fills occur in both the Coralline and the more friable Red Crags, and are of less certain origin. The calcrete-filled fractures formed when the Red Crag sands were overpressured (with the fracture-filling sediment injected upward). Calcretes are associated with roots (rhizoliths) and are confined to fracture fills, despite the high porosity and permeability of the host sands. This confinement remains unexplained. Root penetration and calcrete formation may have occurred when the host sediments were frozen — but this would imply the fissure fills remained open because of upward water flow. This possibility intensifies a problem of finding a source for the overpressured water. If, alternatively, roots and accompanying calcretes were introduced after permafrost conditions had disappeared, their precise confinement to the fracture fills (with calcrete carbonates disappearing within only a few pore diameters into the host sediment) remains inexplicable. If both fractures and their calcrete fills formed during non-permafrost conditions, both the origin of the fractures and their precise filling by calcrete are problematic.     

Thermal-mechanical Influences and Environmental Effects of Expressway Construction on the Qinghai-Tibet Permafrost Engineering Corridor

The Qinghai-Tibet Engineering Corridor (QTEC) is a strategic passage between Tibet and central China. In the past half century, several major projects have been built in this narrow corridor with vulnerable geoenvironment. Along with a new round of economic development of the Tibet autonomous region, some major linear projects including expressway, double-tracking railway, high voltage power transmission line have been incorporated into the national development planning within the corridor, and especially the expressway construction is imminent now. In the QTEC, permafrost is a controlling factor of geological environment, which will impose great restrictions on engineering construction. In turn, engineering construction will induce significant effects on permafrost geological environment. With more and more linear infrastructures crowding into the QTEC, the thermal interaction among permafrost engineering and engineering disturbance on permafrost thermal-mechanical regime will be more significant. With respect to this issue, a research program focusing on thermal-mechanical influences and environmental effects of expressway construction on the Qinghai-Tibet permafrost engineering corridor was started and supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China. In this paper, the research significance, key scientific issues, main research contents and goals of the program are introduced so as to provide some references for related researchers and engineers.     

Elastic-wave velocity characterization of gas hydrate-bearing fractured reservoirs in a permafrost area of the Qilian Mountain,Northwest China

There are two types of gas hydrate-bearing reservoirs in the permafrost area of Qilian Mountain. Most of the gas hydrates occur mainly in the fractured mudstone reservoirs and rarely in the pores of the sandstone reservoirs. In this study, for the acoustic velocity characterization of the fractured gas hydrate reservoirs of the Qilian Mountain permafrost area, some mudstone core samples were collected for physical rock experiments, such as the acoustic experiment and the porosity and permeability experiment. An acoustic velocity numerical simulation of gas hydrate reservoirs was performed according to the Biot theory and the differential effective medium theory, with the conditions of multiple gas hydrate occurrence models, including the suspension model, the semi-cementation model and the cementation model, and considering both infinite and penny-shaped cracks. Fracture porosity was added to the core samples that only contain matrix porosity. With fracture porosity ranging from 0.01% to 5%, the variation laws between acoustic velocity with fractured porosity and hydrate saturation are obtained: (1) In the case of an infinite crack, if the fractured porosity is 0.01%–1%, the P-wave velocity decreases rapidly in the case of the three occurrence models. If the fractured porosity is higher than 1%, the acoustic velocity decreases gradually. If the crack shape is a penny-shaped crack, the P-wave velocity decreases almost linearly with increasing fracture porosity. (2) If the hydrate occurrence model is the suspension model, the P-wave velocity increases slightly with increasing hydrate saturation. If the occurrence model is the semi-cementation model or the cementation model, when the gas hydrate saturation of the infinite crack ranges from 0 to 80%, the acoustic velocity increases approximately linearly, whereas when the gas hydrate saturation ranges from 80% to 100%, the velocity increases rapidly. If the crack is a penny-shaped crack, the velocity increases almost linearly with increasing gas hydrate saturation from 0 to 100%. (3) It is found that the fractured gas hydrate reservoirs of the Qilian Mountain permafrost area contain both penny-shaped and infinite cracks, of which the infinite crack is the main crack shape. The gas hydrate occurrence in the Qilian Mountain permafrost area mainly follows the suspension model. This has significance for the seismic exploration and log evaluation of gas hydrate-bearing fractured reservoirs in the permafrost area of the Qilian Mountain in studying the acoustic velocity characterization, the crack shapes and occurrence models of gas hydrate reservoirs in the study area.     

积沙影响下伏冻土的水热耦合模型研究

青藏高原地区冻土正呈退化趋势,除气候变化、人为活动的影响外,沙漠化也被认为是冻土退化的原因之一,但仍存在较大争议。基于不饱和土渗流和热传导理论,结合CoLM和Coup-Model模型,初步构建了积沙-冻土-水热概念模型和耦合模型。并在两模型的基础上,讨论了沙层反射率、积沙体热容量、积沙体厚度和沙的传热率等参数对下伏冻土的热影响过程。结果表明,沙层的反射率、地面发射率均高于天然地表,沙层接受的热量较天然地表偏少;积沙地表下的沙层和活动层能截留更多热量,使冻结层获得的热量相对减少;沙的导热性较差,导致积沙地表下地温变化出现延迟,从而延缓冻土退化;同时,积沙无论厚薄,都将起到延缓冻土退化的作用。因而,沙漠化对青藏高原冻土退化的影响可能较小,但全面揭示沙漠化对冻土的影响仍需深入研究。