9 Permafrost Drilling and Coring

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Permafrost drilling & coring

Using drilling and coring techniques, we can recreate
what is occurring underground.

Coring

Photo of Mikhail Kanevskiy holding a SIPRE barrel with 16 feet (5 m) of extension rods to collect permafrost cores at a site in Bethel, Alaska.

Photo of a permafrost core collected in Bethel, Alaska that contains wedge ice. Photo of a core that was used to create the science figure drawing below.

We use a core barrel to collect samples of subsurface material to measure soil texture and ground ice content.

We use this information to create graphics like this, which shows our estimation of permafrost composition at a site in Bethel.

Can you find this core on the left in the figure below?

Drilling

We use an auger to look for ground ice and measure the depth and dimensions of ice wedges.

Ice shavings, like those in this photo, that come to the surface as we drill indicate the presence of ground ice, in this case an ice wedge!

A science art figure created by Mikhail Kanevskiy recreating that is happening below the surface using drilling and coring techniques. The figure shows the thickness of the active layer (layer that thaws seasonally above permafrost), followed by various types of permafrost layers below including peat, organic-rich silty sand and silty sand. There is an ice wedge at the center that shows the location of coring and drilling done to determine its dimensions.

A modified version of the above figure was published in:
Jones, B. M., Kanevskiy, M. Z., Ward Jones, M. K., Wilson, P. R., Ditmer, I., Gaglioti, B. V., Klein, E. S., Rangel, R. C., Wallace, K., Jones, M. C., Wooller, M., and Shur, Y. (2025). Cryptic ice wedge networks in Holocene peat, Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta, Alaska. Permafrost and Periglacial Processes: 1-24, https://doi.org/10.1002/ppp.70004

Research led by Mikhail (Misha) Kanevskiy and Benjamin Jones, assistant and associate research professors at the Institute of Northern Engineering, and co-investigators of the Permafrost Grown Project.

Art by Misha Kanevskiy.

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Permafrost Grown Art & Science Walk

Permafrost drilling & coring

Coring

Drilling