| Title | Modelling ground ice abundance in the Slave Geological Province |
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| Author | O'Neill, B ;
Wolfe, S; Duchesne, C |
| Source | ArcticNet 2021 Annual Scientific Meeting abstracts; Arctic Science vol. 8, no. 1, 2022 p. 99-100, https://doi.org/10.1139/as-2022-0002  Open Access |
| Image |  |
| Year | 2022 |
| Alt Series | Natural Resources Canada, Contribution Series 20210247 |
| Publisher | Canadian Science Publishing |
| Meeting | ArcticNet Annual Scientific Meeting 2021; December 6-10, 2021 |
| Document | serial |
| Lang. | English |
| Media | paper; digital; on-line |
| Related | This publication is related to Preliminary modelling of
ground ice abundance in the Slave Geological Province, Northwest Territories and Nunavut |
| File format | pdf; html |
| Province | Northwest Territories; Nunavut |
| NTS | 75L; 85M; 76D; 76E; 76L; 76M; 85I; 85J; 85O; 85P; 86A; 86B; 86G; 86H; 86I; 86J; 86O; 86P |
| Area | Yellowknife; Grays Bay |
| Lat/Long WENS | -116.0000 -110.0000 68.0000 62.0000 |
| Lat/Long WENS | -116.0000 -110.0000 68.0000 62.0000 |
| Subjects | surficial geology/geomorphology; environmental geology; Nature and Environment; Science and Technology; Transport; permafrost; ground ice; periglacial features; modelling; sediments; Slave Province;
Canadian Shield; Infrastructures; Planning; Management; Maps |
| Program | GEM-GeoNorth: Geo-mapping for Energy and Minerals GEM Program Coordination |
| Released | 2022 02 18 |
| Abstract | New infrastructure corridors within the Slave Geological Province will provide transportation, hydro, and communications links to mineral rich areas of northern Canada, and connect southern highway
systems and Arctic shipping routes. Relatively little information on permafrost and ground ice is available compared with other regions. Ice-rich tills have been characterized from cores near Lac de Gras, and preserved buried ice has been documented
within glaciofluvial sediments. Improved knowledge of permafrost and ground ice conditions in the region is required to inform planning and management of infrastructure. Work within the Geological Survey of Canada's (GSC) GEM-GeoNorth program
includes mapping periglacial terrain features, synthesizing existing permafrost and surficial data, and modelling ground ice conditions along the transportation corridor. Here we present initial modelling of ground ice abundance using a methodology
developed for national-scale mapping for the ground ice map of Canada. By contrast with the previous mapping that uses a nationwide surficial materials data set, we use larger-scale standardized information from GSC Canadian Geoscience Maps (CGM) as
model input. We compare outputs for the region derived from the two surficial data sets to assess the influence of surficial geology mapping scale on predicted ground ice abundance. The larger-scale CGM data sets include greater representation of
unconsolidated sediments that may contain ground ice, and consequently, the assessed ground ice abundance is higher than represented on the ground ice map of Canada. Therefore, estimates from the ground ice map of Canada should be viewed as
conservative for this region and other terrain of the Canadian Shield. |
| Summary | (Plain Language Summary, not published)
New infrastructure corridors within the Slave Geological Province will provide transportation, hydro, and communications links to mineral rich areas of
northern Canada, and connect southern highway systems and Arctic shipping routes. Relatively little information on permafrost and ground ice is available compared to other regions. Ice-rich tills have been characterized from cores near Lac de Gras,
and preserved buried ice has been documented within glaciofluvial sediments. Improved knowledge of permafrost and ground ice conditions in the region is required to inform planning and management of infrastructure. Work within the Geological Survey
of Canada's (GSC) GEM-GeoNorth program includes mapping periglacial terrain features, synthesizing existing permafrost and surficial data, and modelling ground ice conditions along the transportation corridor. Here we present initial modelling of
ground ice abundance using a methodology developed for national-scale mapping for the Ground ice map of Canada. In contrast with the previous mapping that uses a nationwide surficial materials dataset, we use larger-scale standardized information
from GSC Canadian Geoscience Maps (CGM) as model input. We compare outputs for the region derived from the two surficial datasets to assess the influence of surficial geology mapping scale on predicted ground ice abundance. The larger-scale CGM
datasets include greater representation of unconsolidated sediments that may contain ground ice, and consequently, the assessed ground ice abundance is higher than represented on the Ground ice map of Canada. Therefore, estimates from the Ground ice
map of Canada should be viewed as conservative for this region and other terrain of the Canadian Shield. |
| GEOSCAN ID | 328870 |
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