Thermal erosion patterns of permafrost peat plateaus in northern Norway

Subarctic peatlands underlain by permafrost contain significant amounts of organic carbon and our ability to quantify the evolution of such permafrost landscapes in numerical models is critical to provide robust predictions of the environmental and climatic changes to come. Yet, the accuracy of large-scale predictions is so far hampered by small-scale physical processes that create a high spatial variability of surface ground thermal regime and thus of permafrost degradation patterns. In this regard, a better understanding of the small-scale interplay between microtopography and lateral fluxes of heat, water and snow can be achieved by field monitoring and process-based numerical modeling. Here, we quantify the topographic changes of the Šuoššjávri peat plateau (Northern Norway) over a three-years period using repeated drone-based high-resolution photogrammetry. Our results show that edge degradation is the main process through which thermal erosion occurs and represents about 80 % of measured subsidence, while most of the inner plateau surface exhibits no detectable subsidence. Based on detailed investigation of eight zones of the plateau edge, we show that this edge degradation corresponds to a volumetric loss of 0.13 ± 0.07 m3 yr−1 m−1 (cubic meter per year and per meter of plateau circumference). Using the CryoGrid land surface model, we show that these degradation patterns can be reproduced in a modeling framework that implements lateral redistribution of snow, subsurface water and heat, as well as ground subsidence due to melting of excess ice. We reproduce prolonged climate-driven edge degradation that is consistent with field observations and present a sensitivity test of the plateau degradation on snow depth over the plateau. Small snow depth variations (from 0 to 30 cm) result in highly different degradation behavior, from stability to fast degradation. These results represent a new step in the modeling of climate-driven landscape development and permafrost degradation in highly heterogeneous landscapes such as peat plateaus. Our approach provides a physically based quantification of permafrost thaw with a new level of realism, notably, regarding feedback mechanisms between the dynamical topography and the lateral fluxes through which a small modification of the snow depth result in dramatic modifications of the permafrost degradation intensity. In this regard, these results also highlight the major control of snow pack characteristics on the ground thermal regime and the potential improvement that accurate snow representation and prediction could bring to projections of permafrost degradation.

The age and evolution of the lithospheric mantle in the East Antarctic Craton: osmium isotope composition and the distribution of the platinum group elements in spinel lherzolite nodules

The mantle xenoliths of lherzolite composition from Mesozoic alkaline-ultrabasic diatremes of the Jetty Oasis were studied. The studied xenoliths represent the mantle section of the East Antarctic Craton down to depths of 60-80 km. The osmium isotope composition of these nodules testifies to the beginning of the formation of the lithospheric mantle in the considered region at about 2400 Ma. The absence of any signs of Early Archean lithosphere points either to partial destruction of the lithosphere at the convergent boundary of the plates in the Late Archean or to thermal erosion of the Archean lithosphere under the deep-seated plume impact at the Mesozoic time during rift propagation.