2 Volumes Final Proceedings - Washington 1984.pdf - IARC Research

PrefacePerennially frozen ground, or permafrost, underliesan estimated 20 percent of the land surfaceof the earth. It affects many human activities,causing unique problem in agriculture, mining,water supply, sewage disposal, and constructionof airfields, roads, railroads, urban areas,and oil and gas pipelines. Therefore, understandingof its distribution and behavior is essential.Although the existence of permafrost has beenknown to the inhabitants of Siberia for centuries,not until 1836 did scientists of the Western worldtake seriously the accounts of thick frozen groundexisting under the forests and tundra of northernEurasia. In that year, Alexander Theodor von Middendorfwasured temperatures to a depth of approximately107 m in permafrost in the SharginShaft, an unsucceseful wel dug in Yakutsk for thegovernor of the Russian-Alaskan Trading Company.It was estimated that the permafrost there was 215m thick. For over a century since then, scientistsand engineers in Siberia have been activelystudying permafrost and applying the results oftheir research in the development of the region.Similarly, prospectors and explorers have beenaware of permafrost in northern North Alserica formany years, but not until World War I1 were systematicstudies undertaken by scientists and engineersin the United States and Canada.As a result of the explosive increase in researchinto the scientific and engineering aspectsof frozen ground since the late 1940s in Canada,the United States, the USSR, and, more recently,the People's Republic of China, and Japan, amongother countries, it becam apparent that scientistsand engineers working in the field needed toexchange information on an international level.The First International Conference on Permafrostwas therefore held in the United States at PurdueUniversity in 1963. This relatively small conferencewas extremely successful and yielded a publicationthat is still used throughout the world.In 1973 approximately 400 participants attendedthe Second International Conference on Permafrostin Yakutsk, Siberia, USSR. By that time it hadbecome apparent that a conference should be heldevery 5 years or so, to bring together scientistsand engineers to hear and discuss the latest developmentsin their fields. Thus in 1978 Canadahosted the Third Internatlonal Conference on Permafrostin Edmonton, Alberta, including fieldtrips to northern Canada. Approximately 450 participantsfrom 14 nations attended, and Chinesescientists were present for the first time. Thepublished proceedings of all three of these conferencesare available (see p. 413).In Edmonton it was decided that the UnitedStates would host the fourth conference, and aformal offer was made by the University of Alaska.Subsequently, the Fourth International Conferenceon Permafrost was held at the Universityof Alaska at Fairbanks, July 17-22, 1983. It wasorganized and cosponsored by committees of thePolar Research Board of the National Academy ofSciences and the State of Alaska. Local and extendedfield trips to various parts of the stateand northwestern Canada, to examine permafrostfeatures, were made an integral part of the conference.Approximately 900 people participated in thenumerous activities, and 350 papers and posterdisplays from 25 countries were presented at theconference. Many engineering and scientific disciplineswere represented, including civil andmechanical engineering, soil mechanics, glacialand periglacial geology, geophysics, marine science,climatology, soil science, hydrology, andecology. The formal program consisted of paneldiscussions followed by paper and poster presentations.The panels considered the followingthemes: pipelines, climatic change and geothermalregime, deep foundations and embankments, permafrostterrain and environmental protection, frostheave and ice segregation, and subsea permafrost.A total of 276 contributed papers were publishedin the first volume of the proceedings.Reports of panel and plenary sessions, additionalcontributed papers and abstracts, summaries offield trips, and lists of participants are includedin this second volume.The U.S. Organizing Committee is indebted tothe many sponsors for their financial support, tothe technical and professional organizations whichparticipated in the program, and to the localFairbanks organizers for their efforts, which resultedin a highly successful meeting.iii