Electrical potentials developed during thawing of frozen ground

Electrical potentials developed during thawing of the active layer in frozen ground have been measured at a test site in Inuvik, Northwest territories. Probes containing copper electrodes spaced at regular intervals were installed vertically in a clay hummock, in an ice-rich soil at the junction of three hummocks, and in a sandy gravel and reconstituted clay in wax-coated cardboard tubes placed in an adjacent hummock. The maximum voltage measured across the thaw boundary was of the order of 500mV in the fine- grained soil and about 200mV in the coarse-grained soil. The difference may be due to the larger amounts of moisture in the fine-grained soil.
4th International Symposium on Ground Freezing, August 5, 1985, Sapporo, Japan