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MBARI researchers, working alongside a team of international collaborators, have discovered large underwater ice formations at the edge of the Canadian Beaufort Sea, located in a remote region of the Arctic. This discovery reveals an unanticipated mechanism for the ongoing formation of submarine permafrost ice. The findings are published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Earth Surface.

In a previous MBARI study, researchers observed enormous craters on the seafloor in this area, attributed to the thawing of ancient permafrost submerged underwater.

While exploring the flanks of these craters on a subsequent expedition, MBARI researchers and collaborators from the Korea Polar Research Institute (KOPRI), the Korea Institute of Geoscience and Mineral Resources, the Geological Survey of Canada, and the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory observed exposed layers of submarine permafrost ice.

The recently discovered layers of ice are not the same as the ancient permafrost formed during the last ice age, but rather were created under present-day conditions. This ice is produced when deeper layers of ancient submarine permafrost melt, creating brackish groundwater that rises and refreezes as it approaches the seafloor, where the ambient temperature is approximately -1.4 degrees Celsius (29.5 degrees Fahrenheit).

Credit: Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute

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