Permafrost

A 2.54-cm Styrofoam plastic foam with thermal conductivity of ca 0.03 W/ (m-K) (0.21 (Btu-in.)/(ft-b°F)) is equivalent to 61 cm of gravel. Any synthetic foam having compressive strength sufficiently high and thermal conductivity sufficiently low is effective. However, the resistance of PS-type foams to water, frost damage, and microorganisms in the sod makes them especially desirable. An interesting and important appHcation of this concept was the use of Styrofoam in the constmction of the Alaska pipeline. In this case, the foam was used to protect the permafrost. 

Many hydrologic reservoirs can be further subdivided into smaller reservoirs, each with a characteristic turnover time. For example, water resides in the Pacific Ocean longer than in the Atlantic, and the oceans surface waters cycle much more quickly than the deep ocean. Similarly, groundwater near the surface is much more active than deep reservoirs, which may cycle over thousands or millions of years, and water frozen in the soil as permafrost. Typical range in turnover times for hydrospheric reservoirs on a hillslope scale (10-10 m) are shown in Table 6-4 (estimates from Falkenmark and Chapman, 1989). Depths are estimated as typical volume averaged over the watershed area. 

Gelisols Cryoturbation permafrost Cold soils polar areas... 

Weakening of Foundations by irreversible Permafrost Thaw due to Higher Average Temperatures in the North. 

Warming of the Climate Causing Permafrost Thaw and Reduced Winter Ice in Arctic Waters. 

Opportunities for easier Mining and Oil Exploration in Permafrost Areas. 

Lachenbruch, A., and B.V Marshall, 1986. Changing climate geothermal evidence from permafrost in the Alaskan Arctic, Science, 234, 689-696. 

The addition of TKPP lowers the freezing point of the fluid significantly. This offers the opportunity of using a subfreezing TKPP mud to drill through strata, i.e., the permafrost in Alaska and Canada, without thawing of the... 

ABSTRACT The Mallik gas hydrate field represents an onshore permafrost-associated gas hydrate accumulation in the Mackenzie Delta on the coast of the Beaufort Sea, Northwest Territories, Canada. This deposit contains a high concentration of natural gas hydrate with an underlying aquifer or free-gas zone at the base of the hydrate stability field. The physical and chemical properties of CH4 and C02 hydrates indicate the possibility of coincident C02 sequestration and CH4 production from the Mallik gas hydrate bearing zones. This study presents a numerical assessment of C02 sequestration and the recovery of CH4 from the gas hydrates at the Mallik site, Mackenzie Delta, Canada. 

Majorowicz Osadetz (2001) reported that the Mallik gas hydrate-bearing deposit in permafrost regions tends to occur at depths of 700 m to 1400 m where the permafrost is 100 m to 900 m thick. The Mallik 2002 Gas Hydrate Production Research Well Program conducted scientifically constrained production tests of the natural gas from the Mallik gas hydrate deposit, which is situated in the Mackenzie Delta on the coast of the Beaufort Sea, Northwest Territories, Canada (Dallimore et al. 2005a Satoh et al. 2005). Gas hydrate production tests demonstrated the potential for possible commercial production. Japan intends to establish commercial production from gas hydrates within the time frame of conventional natural gas production from the Mackenzie Delta (Yonezawa 2003). 

Pham, N., Sego, D.C., Arenson, L.U., Smith, L., Gupton, M., Neuner, M., Amos, R.T., Blowes, D.W., Smith, L. 2009. Diavik Waste Rock Project Heat Transfer in a Permafrost Region. In Proceedings of the 2009, Securing the Future and 8hICARD, June 22-26, 2009, Skelleftea, Sweden. 

PROFILE is a biogeochemical model developed specially to calculate the influence of acid depositions on soil as a part of an ecosystem. The sets of chemical and biogeochemical reactions implemented in this model are (1) soil solution equilibrium, (2) mineral weathering, (3) nitrification and (4) nutrient uptake. Other biogeochemical processes affect soil chemistry via boundary conditions. However, there are many important physical soil processes and site conditions such as convective transport of solutes through the soil profile, the almost total absence of radial water flux (down through the soil profile) in mountain soils, the absence of radial runoff from the profile in soils with permafrost, etc., which are not implemented in the model and have to be taken into account in other ways. 

Figure 11. Relationships between organic matter concentration in permafrost soils of East Siberia Taiga Forest ecosystems and concentration of copper (left) and zinc (right) (Nikitina, 1973).

Figure 7. Vertical oil product distribution in different soils (Solntseva and Sadov, 2004) 1 — peat layers, 2—clay layers, 3—loam layers, 4—permafrost.

The further transformation of uranium exploration areas depends on the landscape biogeochemical conditions. Let us consider two examples of different conditions, dry steppe and permafrost taiga regions (Perelman, Kasimov, 1999). 

Nikitina, I. B. (1973). The geochemistry of ultra-fresh waters in the Northern Taiga Permafrost Landscapes of South Yakut area. In Landscape Geochemistry and Hypergenesis, Nauka Publishers, Moscow, pp. 24-35. 

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