Best practices for using electrical resistivity tomography to investigate permafrost

Abstract

Electrical resistivity tomography (ERT) is a minimally invasive geophysical method that produces a model of subsurface resistivity from a large number of electrical resistance measurements. Strong resistivity contrasts usually exist between frozen and unfrozen earth materials, making ERT an effective and increasingly utilized tool in permafrost research. In this paper, we review more than 300 scientific publications dating from 2000 to 2022 to identify the capabilities and limitations of ERT for permafrost applications. The annual publication rate has increased by a factor of 10 over this period, but several unique challenges remain, and best practices for acquiring, processing, and interpreting ERT data in permafrost environments have not been clearly established. In this paper, we make recommendations for ERT surveys of permafrost and highlight recent advances in the field, with the objective of maximizing the utility of existing and future surveys.

Advancing Permafrost Monitoring With Autonomous Electrical Resistivity Tomography (A‐ERT): Low‐Cost Instrumentation and Open‐Source Data Processing Tool

“…In the event that the proposed criteria do not fully remove all bad measurements, additional processing criteria, suggested by Herring et al. (2023), can be implemented based on the data quality.…”

Mapping Permafrost Variability and Degradation Using Seismic Surface Waves, Electrical Resistivity, and Temperature Sensing: A Case Study in Arctic Alaska

“…Similar to surface wave methods, ERT technique excels in near-surface permafrost characterization by modeling subsurface resistivity to match observed apparent resistivity data, typically yielding a two-dimensional resistivity profile (Daily et al, 2000). ERT has been used in several permafrost studies to characterize permafrost thaw (Etzelmüller et al, 2020), distinguish ice-content variations (Herring et al, 2023), and examine interactions between permafrost and infrastructure (You et al, 2017). MASW has often been combined with other technologies in permafrost research, such as seismic tomography and ERT (Dou & Ajo-Franklin, 2014;Glazer et al, 2020;Marciniak et al, 2018Marciniak et al, , 2019.…”

Characterizing ground ice content and origin to better understand the seasonal surface dynamics of the Gruben rock glacier and the adjacent Gruben debris-covered glacier (southern Swiss Alps)

“…ERT is a well-established method to image the two-dimensional distribution of electrical properties of subsurface mountain permafrost and ground ice due to its sensitivity and suitability to distinguish unfrozen material, ice-containing permafrost (excess ice), and massive sedimentary ice due to their contrasting electrical properties (e.g. Haeberli and Vonder Mühll, 1996;Hauck and Kneisel, 2008;Bosson et al, 2015;Halla et al, 2021;Herring et al, 2023).…”