Transient electromagnetic surveys for the cryolithozone studies of the Western Siberia Arctic zone

Introduction. The structure and distribution of permafrost in Western Siberia, especially in its northern regions (the Yamal Peninsula and the Gydan Peninsula), have remained poorly understood meantime. The paper considers the structure of the permafrost zone, obtained from the high-precision electromagnetic survey of one of the sites in the northern part of the Yamal Peninsula. 

Goal. The purpose of this study was to present the results of electromagnetic surveys to investigate the internal structure of the permafrost zone and permafrost rocks of the Yamal Peninsula. 

Materials and methods. The studies were carried out by the transient electromagnetic method in the near field zone (TEM). The method examines the transient processes that occur in the medium after a pulsed current cut-off in the transmitter loop. Nowadays the TEM method is one of the most technologically advanced techniques for studying the geoelectric properties of the first hundreds of meters of a sediments section. 

Results. Based on the results of the research, it was revealed that the cryosphere of the western part of the Yamal geocryological region is characterized by a continuous distribution of permafrost rocks with under-channel and under-lake taliks, cryopegs and discontinuous permafrost in the vertical section. 

Conclusion. Due to the fact that permafrost rocks were formed and developed under the infl uence of a large number of natural factors, their internal structure, thickness, temperature and other parameters are heterogeneous, which is reflected in the geoelectric characteristics of the section. It seems that further study and interpretation of the obtained new geophysical data from the standpoint of geocryology will shed light on the structure of the permafrost zone of the Yamal Peninsula. 

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