Melting permafrost is causing parts of the seafloor to collapse.
The Arctic permafrost at the bottom of the Canadian Beaufort Sea has been submerged for about 12,000 years, since the end of, when meltwater from glaciers blanketed the region. Until now, the frozen seafloor had been hidden from scientists' peering eyes. This remote part of the Arctic has only recently become accessible to researchers on ships as climate change causes the sea ice to retreat, the researchers said.
With access to the area, the study researchers relied on both ship-based sonar and an autonomous underwater vehicle to complete high-resolution bathymetric surveys of the Canadian Beaufort Sea. "We know that big changes are happening across the Arctic landscape, but this is the first time we've been able to deploy technology to see that changes are happening offshore too," Charlie Paull, a geologist at Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute ,.
To understand how this roughness evolved over time and what might be causing it, the team conducted three more surveys, using AUVs in 2013 and 2017 and then ship sonar in 2019. These snapshots of the same areas over time showed the emergence of steep-sided and irregularly shaped depressions. The largest sinkhole-like crater is a whopping 738 feet long, 312 feet wide and 92 feet deep, the researchers said.
Here's how the researchers propose the circular holes are forming: As gradual warming thaws the permafrost beneath the Arctic Shelf, an area that was once filled with a solid becomes fluid. The surface material then collapses into that liquid-filled void; these seafloor collapses happen intermittently over time, the researchers said.
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