The potential of common-offset GPR surveying in complex permafrost environments: An example from Northern Siberia

Permafrost environments provide typically favorable conditions for GPR reflection imaging. The subsurface architecture of this perennially frozen ground comprises unique and complex subsurface structures such as ice wedges. These features represent challenging targets for 2D and 3D common offset surveying strategies. Here, we evaluate the potential of GPR to image complex permafrost environments in Northern Siberia using synthetic and field data examples. We use a realistic 2D synthetic model derived from an outcrop photograph to investigate the potential of common-offset data to image typical structures related to ice wedges and sedimentary layers. This synthetic study illustrates that a thorough surveying and processing strategy including a proper data migration is essential to derive a meaningful subsurface model. These findings are found to be extremely useful to process and interpret a 3D data set recorded on our field site located on the New Siberian Archipelago. Here, after careful processing we are able to identify and image cryostratigraphic interfaces between and below massive ice wedges.