Taliks are areas of permanently unfrozen soil in permafrost regions mainly found under rivers or lakes (Harris, 1988). When their aquifer potential is sufficient, taliks could supply communities in northern Canada with a source of freshwater – a major concern for the people living there. The Kuguuluk River talik in Salluit, an Inuit community in northern Québec, shows good aquifer potential but uncertainty persists regarding its vulnerability and sustainability as a source of supply. Ultimately, the study of this river-talik system may serve as an example for northern communities located in permafrost environments that might otherwise have difficulty accessing clean drinking water.
Under the framework of the Geological Survey of Canada’s GEM-GeoNorth program, the main goal of this research is to investigate the long-term sustainability of a river-talik system as a freshwater source in a continuous permafrost environment (Salluit, Nunavik, QC). Permafrost thawing in northern landscapes has implications for aquatic ecosystems and the role they play in the global carbon cycle (Vincent et al., 2017; Williamson et al., 2009). The microbial processing of the carbon stored in permafrost for millennia and released as greenhouse gases (i.e., CO2 and CH4) is particularly climate-relevant (Dean et al., 2018; Vonk et al., 2015). As a whole, permafrost thaw has been documented to alter hydrologic pathways (Liljedahl et al., 2016), increasing recharge to groundwaters (Walvoord and Striegl, 2007) and changing water chemistry (Abbott et al., 2015). In particular, increases in dissolved organic matter (DOM) to surface waters, a process known as browning, alters the physical and chemical characteristics of lakes (Creed et al., 2018; Kritzberg and Ekström, 2012; Wauthy et al., 2018; Williamson et al., 2015). This phenomenon has been described at many locations on the planet, although reports at high latitudes are still limited (Williamson et al., 2015). In addition, the accelerated degradation of permafrost has resulted the formation of thaw ponds and lakes that have increased in size and numbers in zone regions including Nunavik (Bouchard et al., 2014). If these waterbodies have attracted lot of attention in the decade, other permafrost thaw-derived ones such as talik have been overlooked.
Figure 1: Sampling groundwater monitoring wells in the Kuguuluk River talik in Salluit, Québec, Nunavik, Canada.
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The project component described here will characterise the dissolved organic matter (DOM) in the Kuguuluk River talik using ultrahigh resolution Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance (FTICR) mass spectrometry. FTICR MS can provide unparalleled insight into the chemical composition and biolability of DOM in Arctic rivers draining areas of thawing permafrost (Moore et al., 2024; Spencer et al., 2015). With approval from the Kativik Regional Government, water samples for FTICR MS will be collected non-destructively from sites along the main stem of the Kuguuluk River near the village of Salluit, several monitoring wells installed at different depths to measure hydrogeological and hydrogeochemical properties of the river-talik system, and active layer samples from streams draining thawing permafrost feeding into the main river. Samples will be collected during fieldwork carried out during summer or early autumn. If funding is available, samples will be collected during different fieldwork campaigns to assess seasonally variability.
DRs will be awarded CENTA Training Credits (CTCs) for participation in CENTA-provided and ‘free choice’ external training. One CTC can be earned per 3 hours training, and DRs must accrue 100 CTCs across the three and a half years of their PhD.
The student will gain training and expertise in the field of environmental analysis, including sample collection and preparation. The student will have the option to work in-house in Canada with the research team of Dr Ahad. This international exposure will provide hands-on training in oil sands environmental chemistry. At the University of Warwick, the student will gain expertise from one of the world’s leading FTICR laboratories, learning FTICR mass spectrometry and including use of different ionization, dissociation, and data analysis techniques.
Dr. Barrow has approximately 25 years of experience with FTICR mass spectrometry, environmental samples, and data analysis of complex mixtures. Prof. Bending provides expertise on microbial profiling, metagenomics, and soil microcosm type systems. Dr. Ahad has conducted his research in Canada and the UK, working with GSC-Quebec for more than 14 years. Dr. Nicolas Benoit is a hydrogeologist with experience in northern climate investigations, focusing upon understanding flow dynamics in sub-lake and sub-river taliks. He will be performing non-destructive sampling, with approval and cooperation of the Kativik Regional Government.
Year 1: Introduction to FTICR mass spectrometry, training on the 12 T solariX and 15 T solariX XR, introduction to data analysis methods, analysis of initial samples.
Year 2: Analyse samples from summer or early autumn fieldwork campaign.
Year 3: Complete analysis of samples from second fieldwork campaign (if funding is available). Work on several manuscripts in collaboration with colleagues.
Abbott, B.W., Jones, J.B., Godsey, S.E., Larouche, J.R., Bowden, W.B., 2015. Patterns and persistence of hydrologic carbon and nutrient export from collapsing upland permafrost. Biogeosciences 12, 3725-3740.
Bouchard, F., Francus, P., Pienitz, R., Laurion, I., Feyte, S., 2014. Subarctic thermokarst ponds: investigating recent landscape evolution and sediment dynamics in thawed permafrost of northern Québec (Canada). Arctic, Antarctic, and Alpine Research 46, 251-271.
Creed, I.F., Bergström, A.K., Trick, C.G., Grimm, N.B., Hessen, D.O., Karlsson, J., Kidd, K.A., Kritzberg, E., McKnight, D.M., Freeman, E.C., 2018. Global change‐driven effects on dissolved organic matter composition: Implications for food webs of northern lakes. Global change biology 24, 3692-3714.
Dean, J.F., van der Velde, Y., Garnett, M.H., Dinsmore, K.J., Baxter, R., Lessels, J.S., Smith, P., Street, L.E., Subke, J.-A., Tetzlaff, D., 2018. Abundant pre-industrial carbon detected in Canadian Arctic headwaters: implications for the permafrost carbon feedback. Environmental Research Letters 13, 034024.
Harris, S.A., 1988. Glossary of permafrost and related ground-ice terms, 142. Permafrost Subcommittee, Associate Committee on Geotechnical Research
Kritzberg, E., Ekström, S., 2012. Increasing iron concentrations in surface waters–a factor behind brownification? Biogeosciences 9, 1465-1478.
Liljedahl, A.K., Boike, J., Daanen, R.P., Fedorov, A.N., Frost, G.V., Grosse, G., Hinzman, L.D., Iijma, Y., Jorgenson, J.C., Matveyeva, N., 2016. Pan-Arctic ice-wedge degradation in warming permafrost and its influence on tundra hydrology. Nature Geoscience 9, 312-318.
Moore, M., Tank, S., Kurek, M., Taskovic, M., McKenna, A., Smith, J., Kokelj, S., Spencer, R., 2024. Ultrahigh resolution dissolved organic matter characterization reveals distinct permafrost characteristics on the Peel Plateau, Canada. Biogeochemistry 167, 99-117.
Spencer, R.G.M., Mann, P.J., Dittmar, T., Eglinton, T.I., McIntyre, C., Holmes, R.M., Zimov, N., Stubbins, A., 2015. Detecting the signature of permafrost thaw in Arctic rivers. Geophysical Research Letters 42, 2830-2835.
Vincent, W.F., Lemay, M., Allard, M., 2017. Arctic permafrost landscapes in transition: towards an integrated Earth system approach. Arctic Science 3, 39-64.
Vonk, J.E., Tank, S.E., Bowden, W.B., Laurion, I., Vincent, W.F., Alekseychik, P., Amyot, M., Billet, M., Canário, J., Cory, R.M., 2015. Reviews and syntheses: Effects of permafrost thaw on Arctic aquatic ecosystems. Biogeosciences 12, 7129-7167.
Walvoord, M.A., Striegl, R.G., 2007. Increased groundwater to stream discharge from permafrost thawing in the Yukon River basin: Potential impacts on lateral export of carbon and nitrogen. Geophysical Research Letters 34.
Wauthy, M., Rautio, M., Christoffersen, K.S., Forsström, L., Laurion, I., Mariash, H.L., Peura, S., Vincent, W.F., 2018. Increasing dominance of terrigenous organic matter in circumpolar freshwaters due to permafrost thaw. Limnology and Oceanography Letters 3, 186-198.
Williamson, C.E., Overholt, E.P., Pilla, R.M., Leach, T.H., Brentrup, J.A., Knoll, L.B., Mette, E.M., Moeller, R.E., 2015. Ecological consequences of long-term browning in lakes. Scientific Reports 5, 18666.
Williamson, C.E., Saros, J.E., Vincent, W.F., Smol, J.P., 2009. Lakes and reservoirs as sentinels, integrators, and regulators of climate change. Limnology and oceanography 54, 2273-2282.
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