Permafrost and thermal interfaces from Normal Wells pipeline ditchwall logs

1991 ◽  
Vol 28 (5) ◽  
pp. 738-745 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. F. Derick Nixon ◽  
R. Saunders ◽  
J. Smith
Keyword(s):  
Color Change ◽  
Input Parameter ◽  
Data File ◽  
Frozen Soil ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
Frozen Ground ◽  
The North ◽  
Discontinuous Permafrost ◽  
Geophysical Surveys ◽  
Thermal Interfaces

During the construction of the Normal Wells pipeline by Interprovincial Pipeline Ltd. in the early 1980s, a continuous ditchwall log was created during ditching for pipeline burial. The ditch was typically 1.2 m deep and stretched continuously from Normal Wells in the Canadian Arctic to Zama Lake in northern Alberta, a total distance of 869 km through the discontinuous permafrost zone. The ditch was logged by experienced geotechnical field personnel every 50–100 m, depending on changing conditions. Every transition from unfrozen to frozen soil was logged based on visual criteria such as color change, visual presence of ice or moisture in the ditchwall, etc. Recently, the authors have carefully studied the ditchwall records and compiled a data file containing all of the relevant data pertaining to permafrost distribution. This provided a unique opportunity to study the amount and distribution of permafrost along a continuous transect through discontinuous and sporadic permafrost regions in Arctic Canada. The number of thermal interfaces per kilometre is an extremely important input parameter for studies relating to pipeline frost heave and thaw settlement in the Arctic. In addition, a knowledge of the percentage of frozen ground is important when deciding whether to operate a gas or pipeline above or below freezing. The number of frozen–unfrozen interfaces have been summarized in the paper by pipeline spread and geological terrain unit. The overall percentage of frozen ground decreases from up to 95% in the north to a low of around 16% at the south end of the study area, as might be expected. The number of interfaces typically varies between about one and three per kilometre, with the highest number occurring in some of the organic terrain units in the southern discontinuous zone. Finally, comparisons are made with the amount of permafrost and number of interfaces as logged by electrical geophysical surveys carried out and published in advance of pipeline construction. There is reasonable agreement in terms of the overall amount of frozen ground; however, the geophysical surveys may have overestimated the number of thermal interfaces in some areas. Key words: ditch logs, permafrost, Normal Wells, pipeline, thermal interfaces, frozen ground.

Late-glacial deposits on the chalk of South-East England

1963 ◽  
Vol 246 (730) ◽  
pp. 203-254 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Late Glacial ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
Glacial Period ◽  
Frozen Ground ◽  
North West ◽  
Late Glacial Period ◽  
The North ◽  
Zone Ii ◽  
South East England ◽  
A Minor

Subaerial deposits of the Late-glacial Period ( ca . 12000 to 8300 B. C.) of the Last Glaciation are described at a number of sites in Kent, Surrey and Sussex. The deposits are primarily stratified chalk muds and fine rubbles, produced by frost-shattering and the release of water from melting snow-fields and from frozen ground. The climatic improvement of zone II, or Allerod Oscillation (10000 to 8800 B. C.), is widely reflected stratigraphically by a rendsina soil, containing fragments of wood charcoal, separating two sheets of chalk muds referred to zones I and III. The age of the soil has been confirmed by radiocarbon dating. It is correlated with the Usselo Layer within the Younger Coversands of the Netherlands. There is evidence from two areas, Folkestone and the Medway Valley, that the climate of south-east England became sufficiently cold during zone III to produce fairly intense frost-heaving (cryoturbation). The deposits contain virtually no pollen, but yield a fauna of land Mollusca. Columns of samples were collected from six sections and the assemblages they yielded are presented in the form of histograms, showing the changing vertical abundance of each species. The fauna is a remarkable mixture of diverse zoogeographical elements; its relations are with the Alpine area rather than with the Arctic. The ecological and climatic significance of the changes in the assemblages is discussed. During zone II, the assemblages increase in variety and certain relatively thermophilous species were able to spread widely, most notably the West European and Alpine snail Abida secale . The climate of zone III was probably more humid than that of zone I, and also less cold. In Sussex, due to the proximity of the open sea to the south-west, the climate of zone I may have been relatively milder than in Kent and Surrey; this is suggested by the appearance of thermophilous species perhaps 1000 years before their general expansion on the North Downs. Evidence is put forward from several sites for a minor climatic oscillation within zone I ; this is equated with the Bolling Oscillation (zone I b ) of north-west Europe. The Late-glacial Period is the last for which there is evidence of active erosion in the Chalk landscape.

Remediation of Arctic tundra following petroleum or salt water spills

Polar Record ◽  
2001 ◽  
Vol 37 (202) ◽  
pp. 264-266 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffery S. Conn ◽  
Christina Behr-Andres ◽  
Janice Wiegers ◽  
Ed Meggert ◽  
Nick Glover
Keyword(s):  
Crude Oil ◽  
Saline Water ◽  
Salt Water ◽  
Organic Soil ◽  
Frozen Soil ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
Frozen Ground ◽  
Arctic Regions ◽  
Heavy Equipment ◽  
Exploration And Production

AbstractOil exploration and production in the Arctic regions has resulted in spills of petroleum and salt water in tundra ecosystems. The transportation and use of refined petroleum in Arctic regions has also led to spills, and the cleanup and ecosystem restoration in these systems can often be complicated by the existence of ice-rich soil permafrost. Compaction, removal, or tearing of the protective vegetation and organic soil can result in thermokarsting and associated changes in plant communities, which may persist for decades. Such problems led the State of Alaska to establish recovery-based clean-up regulations for spills to tundra.A review was conducted of published literature, government agency spill files, and industry reports concerning spills of petroleum and saline water in tundra regions. A tundra spill database was created, which allows the determination of the spill frequency of refined petroleum, crude oil, and saline water. Refined-petroleum spills are more common and smaller than crude-oil and saline-water spills. Most spills are to wet tundra during winter, and winter spills are more effectively cleaned up than those in summer. In winter, snow contains most spills, frozen soil and frozen water bodies prevent much soil penetration, plants are dormant, and operation of heavy equipment is feasible on frozen ground. The use of fire to reduce the volume of petroleum spills in winter is not recommended. Heat from burning petroleum can melt snow, thaw soil, and allow the penetration of petroleum into soil.

scholarly journals Application of multivariate storage model to quantify trends in seasonally frozen soil

2016 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Woody ◽  
Yan Wang ◽  
Jamie Dyer
Keyword(s):  
Thermal Regime ◽  
Queuing Theory ◽  
Frozen Soil ◽  
Standard Errors ◽  
Weighted Sum ◽  
Frozen Ground ◽  
Storage Model ◽  
The North ◽  
One Step ◽  
Observation Period

AbstractThis article presents a study of the ground thermal regime recorded at 11 stations in the North Dakota Agricultural Network. Particular focus is placed on detecting trends in the annual ground freeze process portion of the ground thermal regime’s daily temperature signature. A multivariate storage model from queuing theory is fit to a quantity of estimated daily depths of frozen soil. Statistical inference on a trend parameter is obtained by minimizing a weighted sum of squares of a sequence of daily one-step-ahead predictions. Standard errors for the trend estimates are presented. It is shown that the daily quantity of frozen ground experienced at these 11 sites exhibited a negative trend over the observation period.

scholarly journals Soil-frost-enabled soil-moisture–precipitation feedback over northern high latitudes

2016 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 611-625 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefan Hagemann ◽  
Tanja Blome ◽  
Altug Ekici ◽  
Christian Beer
Keyword(s):  
Soil Moisture ◽  
Land Surface ◽  
Frozen Soil ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
Soil Processes ◽  
High Latitudes ◽  
Cold Region ◽  
Max Planck ◽  
Freezing And Thawing ◽  
Frozen Ground

Abstract. Permafrost or perennially frozen ground is an important part of the terrestrial cryosphere; roughly one quarter of Earth's land surface is underlain by permafrost. The currently observed global warming is most pronounced in the Arctic region and is projected to persist during the coming decades due to anthropogenic CO2 input. This warming will certainly have effects on the ecosystems of the vast permafrost areas of the high northern latitudes. The quantification of such effects, however, is still an open question. This is partly due to the complexity of the system, including several feedback mechanisms between land and atmosphere. In this study we contribute to increasing our understanding of such land–atmosphere interactions using an Earth system model (ESM) which includes a representation of cold-region physical soil processes, especially the effects of freezing and thawing of soil water on thermal and hydrological states and processes. The coupled atmosphere–land models of the ESM of the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, MPI-ESM, have been driven by prescribed observed SST and sea ice in an AMIP2-type setup with and without newly implemented cold-region soil processes. Results show a large improvement in the simulated discharge. On the one hand this is related to an improved snowmelt peak of runoff due to frozen soil in spring. On the other hand a subsequent reduction in soil moisture enables a positive feedback to precipitation over the high latitudes, which reduces the model's wet biases in precipitation and evapotranspiration during the summer. This is noteworthy as soil-moisture–atmosphere feedbacks have previously not been the focus of research on the high latitudes. These results point out the importance of high-latitude physical processes at the land surface for regional climate.

Learning the Tools of Survival in the Thule and Dorset Cultures of Arctic Canada

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert W. Park
Keyword(s):  
The Arctic ◽  
American Continent ◽  
Frozen Ground ◽  
Seasonal Differences ◽  
Plant Foods ◽  
North American Continent ◽  
The North ◽  
The World ◽  
Animal Resources ◽  
Inuit Peoples

The Arctic part of the North American continent has seen some of the most fascinating and demanding human adaptations anywhere, culminating in those of the Inuit who live there today. This region is characterized by persistence of cold (long winters and short cool summers), permafrost (year-round frozen ground), large seasonal differences in the amount of sunlight, few or no trees, and a minimum of plant foods directly consumable by humans. To survive in this environment the Inuit peoples and their predecessors, of necessity, relied on technology and on animal resources to a greater extent than recent hunter-gatherer populations anywhere else in the world. This chapter explores the ethnographic and archaeological records of these peoples and this region to study the nature of childhood in prehistoric hunter-gatherer populations.

Current Land and Waterborne Geophysical Methods for Guiding Horizontal Directional Drilling and Trenching Along Pipeline Right-of-Ways

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Bauman ◽  
Alastair McClymont ◽  
Landon Woods ◽  
Erin Ernst
Keyword(s):  
Seismic Refraction ◽  
Geophysical Methods ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
Directional Drilling ◽  
Borehole Geophysics ◽  
Discontinuous Permafrost ◽  
Refraction Seismic ◽  
Geotechnical Investigations ◽  
Geophysical Surveys

In Western Canada, oil and natural gas pipeline projects are being considered that will move hydrocarbons from the Prairie Provinces and British Columbia, to the Pacific Ocean, the Atlantic, and even potentially the Arctic. Along the proposed right-of-ways, the pipeline engineers will encounter challenging and varied terrain, including discontinuous permafrost, creek and river crossings, glaciomarine clays, thick muskeg, and other subsurface conditions that require specialized engineering planning in advance of construction. Geophysical surveys, in support of geotechnical investigations, provide continuous subsurface information to help inform design challenges associated with the many terrain challenges. Some geophysical surveys to be considered include electrical resistivity tomography (ERT), induced polarization (IP), seismic refraction, seismic reflection, multi-channel analysis of surface waves (MASW), ground penetrating radar (GPR), and borehole geophysics. Typically, a combination of several geophysical surveys along with drilling information, are optimal for the cost-effective site characterization of problematic segments of proposed pipeline right-of-ways.

Numerical Studies of Pipeline Uplift Resistance in Frozen Ground

2004 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bill Liu ◽  
Karen Moffitt ◽  
J. F. (Derick) Nixon ◽  
Joe Zhou ◽  
Yuxing Xiao
Keyword(s):  
Numerical Model ◽  
Design Tool ◽  
Frozen Soil ◽  
Frost Heave ◽  
Sensitivity Analyses ◽  
Relative Movement ◽  
Frozen Ground ◽  
Discontinuous Permafrost ◽  
Uplift Resistance ◽  
Load Displacement

A buried pipeline is subject to a variety of internal and external loads, one of which is the load induced by relative movement between the pipeline and the surrounding soils. Frost heave is one of the potential mechanisms that induce the relative movement for buried pipelines of chilled gas. The magnitude of the loads due to frost heave depends upon the amount of heaving and the load-displacement characteristics of the surrounding frozen soils, i.e., the uplift resistance of the soils. Under the sponsorship of Pipeline Research Council International (PRCI), laboratory uplift tests have been carried out to study the load-displacement characteristics of a frozen soil. In parallel, a series of laboratory geo-mechanical tests were conducted to define stiffness, tensile strain limits and time-dependent features of the frozen soil. A numerical model, using the geo-mechanical properties of the frozen soil as input parameters, has been developed. The numerical model is intended to be used as a tool primarily for sensitivity analyses and scaling of the results of the laboratory uplift tests to field operations, which are anticipated to have pipe diameters in a range of 5 to 10 times of the laboratory tests. A description of the numerical model is provided in the paper. The load-displacement relationships and failure mechanisms represented in the numerical model are compared with the measurements and observations made during the laboratory uplift tests (quantitative data on uplift resistance are considered proprietary and will not be presented, but detailed data may be obtained from technical publications of PRCI). After being calibrated, the numerical model can be used for sensitivity analyses, and also potentially used as a design tool for pipelines in discontinuous permafrost.

scholarly journals IV.—On the Glacial Epoch of Great Britain

1873 ◽  
Vol 10 (111) ◽  
pp. 413-415
Author(s):  
Joshua Wilson
Keyword(s):  
East Coast ◽  
White Sea ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
The White Sea ◽  
Frozen Ground ◽  
North East ◽  
The North ◽  
Glacial Epoch ◽  
The Baltic ◽  
A Current

It must be admitted that if during the Glacial period an arctic current, similar to that which now sweeps along the east coast of North America, were to pass over the submerged portions of our island, there is no reason why the climate of this country should not assimilate to that of Labrador, where there is now perpetual frozen ground in the latitude of Liverpool. The question then is, what evidence have we that such a current existed at the commencement of the Glacial epoch ? Have we not the evidence of the striæ on the rocks and mountains of the Scandinavian peninsula, as well as on those of our own country, to show that, during the period of the submergence of these districts, icebergs were driven by an arctic current from the north-east to the south-west ?—that the Polar Sea extended from the White Sea to the entrance of the Baltic, spreading southward over Germany to the confines of Switzerland, which can be traced by the deposited boulders and other ice-transported materials ? Then, as to the cause of this return current. It must be evident that the Gulf-stream at that date could not have flowed in its present direction. The arctic current coming down the Baltic must have thrown it further to the west, so that in all probability in its northern progress it would impinge on the east coast of Greenland and the Island of Spitzbergen; then being deflected by the polar ice, it would return by the way of the White Sea and the Baltic, so completing the circuit.

MONITORING THE DYNAMICS OF THERMOABRASION COASTS AT KHARASAVEY AREA, WESTERN YAMAL (KARA SEA)

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dmitry Kuznetsov ◽  
Dmitry Kuznetsov ◽  
Anatoliy Kamalov ◽  
Anatoliy Kamalov ◽  
Nataliya Belova ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Human Impact ◽  
Remote Sensing Data ◽  
Kara Sea ◽  
Motor Vehicles ◽  
Yamal Peninsula ◽  
Western Coast ◽  
Frozen Ground ◽  
Coastal Dynamics ◽  
The North ◽  
Ice Content

The dynamics of thermoabrasion coasts on loose sediments under permafrost conditions are highly variable due to several factors: length of the dynamic period of the year, mechanic composition of the frozen ground and its ice content, hydrometeorological conditions, and human impact. Multiannual monitoring of the coastal zone was carried out by Lab. Geoecology of the North (Moscow State University) at the 22 km long Kharasavey deposit site, Western Coast of Yamal Peninsula (Kara Sea). The methods include direct measurements and observations (repeated topographic survey of shore transects from 1981 to 2012) along with remote sensing data analysis (images from 1964 to 2011). This allowed producing detailed characteristics of coastal dynamics. At the site, thermoabrasion coasts occupy the most part, and accumulative coasts are present in the north. Data on natural relief forming factors and ground composition are included in the detailed geomorphologic map of the site. Shore retreat rate shows correlation to amounts of wind-wave energy and to specific wind directions. Human impact on the coast includes dredging at the port channel, mining of sand, driving motor vehicles, and deposition of construction debris. Relations between shore retreat rate and aforementioned factors were studied, including dependencies on ice content, and shore segmentation was carried out. This allows for coastal dynamics forecasts in the region.

To the issue of application of thermoplastic reinforced pipes for the construction of oil and gas pipelines in the Arctic

2020 ◽  
pp. 88-99
Author(s):  
A. A. Tolmachev ◽  
V. A. Ivanov ◽  
T. G. Ponomareva
Keyword(s):  
Oil And Gas ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
Labor Costs ◽  
Hydrocarbon Production ◽  
Environmental Disasters ◽  
The North ◽  
Reinforcing Fibers ◽  
Wear And Tear ◽  
Oil And Gas Companies ◽  
Reinforcing Layer

Ensuring the safety of oil and gas facilities and increasing their facility life are today one of the most important tasks. Emergencies related to rupture and damage of steel pipelines because of their wear and tear and external factors are still the most frequent cases of emergencies during the transportation of hydrocarbons. To expand the fuel and energy complex in the north, in the direction of the Arctic, alternative types of pipelines are needed that solve the problems of reducing energy and labor costs in oil and gas companies, reducing the risk of environmental disasters and depressurization of pipelines during hydrocarbon production. Fiber-reinforced thermoplastic pipes can be such an alternative. This article is devoted to a comparative analysis of the materials of a composite system consisting of a thermoplastic pipe (inner layer) and reinforcing fibers (outer layer); we are discussing the design of the structural system consisting of polyethylene (inner layer) and aramid fibers (outer reinforcing layer).

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