Geomorphic feature inventory along the Dempster and Inuvik to Tuktoyaktuk highway corridor, Yukon and Northwest Territories

Abstract

Thaw of permafrost and associated ground ice melt can reduce ground stability, modify terrain, and reconfigure drainage patterns affecting terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems and presenting challenges to northern infrastructure and societies. The integrity of ground-based transportation infrastructure is critical to northern communities. Geomorphic features can indicate ground ice presence and thaw susceptibility. This Geological Survey of Canada Open File presents the digital georeferenced database of landforms identified in continuous permafrost terrain using high-resolution satellite imagery. The database is for a 10 km-wide corridor centered on the Dempster and Inuvik-Tuktoyaktuk highways. This 875 km-long transect traverses a variety of geological and physiographic terrain types, including glaciated and non-glaciated terrain, in the northcentral Yukon and northwestern Northwest Territories, where variation in climate, relief, ecology, and disturbance have produced a variety of periglacial conditions. We identified geomorphic features in high-resolution (0.6 m) satellite imagery visualized in 3D, and digitized them in ArcGIS. We used custom Python scripts to populate the attributes for each geomorphic feature. A total of 8746 features were mapped by type and categorized within three main classes: hydrological (n = 1188), mass movement (n = 2435), and periglacial (n = 5123). Features were identified at 1:10 000 and mapped at 1:5000. This report presents the geospatial database in ESRI shapefile, Keyhole Markup Language (KML), and comma-delineated formats.