Nordicana D124 / DOI : 10.5885/45873CE-1868D8B97EB04118

Soil properties of ice-wedge pseudomorphs and the encompassing sediments in a recently formed drained basin in Old Crow Flats, Yukon, Canada

Samuel Gagnon^1,2, Pascale Roy-Léveillée ^1,2
¹Département de Géographie, Université Laval
²Centre d'études nordiques

Abstract

In 2019, a thermokarst lake located in low-shrub polygonal tundra in the Old Crow Flats (Yukon, Canada) drained catastrophically, forming a 1.9km2 drained basin containing a residual pond covering 32% of the basin and corresponding to the deepest parts (2-3 m) of the former lake. In the south-western part of the basin, the youngest part where bank erosion was strongest, a polygonal network was visible after drainage. In the troughs of the polygonal network, ice-wedge pseudomorphs were found in 2022-2023. Ice-wedge pseudomorphs are thermokarst structures that form by the secondary infilling of sediment in deformed cavities left by the melting of ice wedges. The pseudomorphs that were found formed during the expansion of the former lake and differ greatly in composition from the encompassing sediments. This dataset reports the soil properties of seven pseudomorphs and their encompassing sediments (i.e. lake-bottom sediments) that were unearthed at increasing distance from the southwest shoreline to study their composition and morphology.

Data citation

Gagnon, S., Roy-Léveillée, P. 2023. Soil properties of ice-wedge pseudomorphs and the encompassing sediments in a recently formed drained basin in Old Crow Flats, Yukon, Canada, v. 1.0 (2022-2023). Nordicana D124, doi: 10.5885/45873CE-1868D8B97EB04118.

Location map

Key references

Roy-Léveillée, Pascale, and C. R. Burn. “Near-Shore Talik Development beneath Shallow Water in Expanding Thermokarst Lakes, Old Crow Flats, Yukon.” Journal of Geophysical Research: Earth Surface 122, no. 5 (2017): 1070–89. DOI: 10.1002/2016JF004022.

Contributors

Turner, Kevin (Brock University)

Acknowledgements

We thank Robert Linklater and Nicole Corbiere for their help during fieldwork. We also thank Polar Knowledge Canada, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, and the Weston Foundation for their support. Finally, we are grateful to the village of Old Crow, its inhabitants and the Vuntut Gwitchin First Nation for welcoming us and supporting our research.

Nordicana D115 - Mesures de la profondeur du front de dégel, de l'épaisseur de la couche organique de surface, de la teneur en eau du sol et de la profondeur de la nappe phréatique à Old Crow Flats, Yukon, Canada / Measurements of thaw front depth, surface organic layer thickness, soil moisture content and water table depth in Old Crow Flats, Yukon, Canada

Status

Published

Version history

You can request for data from previous versions at nordicana@cen.ulaval.ca.

Version 1.0 (2022-2023) - Updated December 22, 2023

Measurement sites

	Site	Latitude	Longitude	Altitude (m)

More info	Bassin drainé	67.921833	-139.482571	303

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Sites

Bassin drainé

Data

Gravimetric water content
08/2022 - 08/2022

Bulk density
08/2022 - 08/2023

Dry density
08/2022 - 08/2023

Organic matter content
08/2022 - 08/2023

Gravel content
08/2022 - 08/2023

Sand content
08/2022 - 08/2023

Silt content
08/2022 - 08/2023

Clay content
08/2022 - 08/2023

Mean grain size
08/2022 - 08/2023

Grain size sorting
08/2022 - 08/2023

Grain size skewness
08/2022 - 08/2023

Grain size Kurtosis
08/2022 - 08/2023