APEX Electrical Resistivity Tomography (ERT) Data and Models from 2018

Geophysical measurements and related field data were collected by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) at the Alaska Peatland Experiment (APEX) site in Interior Alaska from 2018 to 2020 to characterize subsurface thermal and hydrologic conditions along a permafrost thaw gradient. The APEX site is managed by the Bonanza Creek LTER (Long Term Ecological Research). Nine instrument monitoring sites (APEX1-APEX9) were established in April 2018. To quantify permafrost and thaw zone characteristics along the instrumented gradient, electrical resistivity tomography (ERT) data were collected in August 2018 along four 82 meter (m)-long transects between select sites: APEX1-3, APEX5-3, APEX5-7, and APEX6-8. Data were collected for both dipole-dipole (DD) and inverse Schlumberger (IS) survey geometries. Inverted models of electrical resistivity were produced from the separate DD and IS datasets, as well as the combination of both datasets inverted jointly (labeled DDIS). The resulting models of electrical resistivity revealed the spatial variability in soil lithology and thermal state (frozen vs. thawed) to depths up to 10-15 m below the surface. Manual permafrost-probe measurements of thaw depths were collected at set intervals along each ERT transect and used for comparison to the resistivity models.