Post-Expedition Report for USGS T-3 Ice Island Heat Flow Measurements in the High Arctic Ocean, 1963-1973

This is an unpublished report formulated in the 1970s by a now-retired USGS scientist Art Lachenbruch and now-deceased USGS scientist B. Vaughn Marshall. The report was provided to the USGS Coastal and Marine Hazards Program by Dr. Lawrence Lawver of the University of Texas Institute for Geophysics. Dr. Barbara Lachenbruch, Emeritus Professor at Oregon State University, also has a copy of this report in the scientific papers of her father, Dr. Arthur H. Lachenbruch. From 2016 to 2019, the Woods Hole Coastal and Marine Science Center engaged in correspondence with Drs. Lawver and B. Lachenbruch to verify the state of the report. Some queries about the report and the T-3 measurements were also passed to Dr. A. Lachenbruch through his daughter. The report has standalone value as a scientific product and is also the source of the heat flow data (tables) used as the basis for the associated sciencebase.gov release and a paper in the Journal of Geophysical Research. The report has therefore been updated and is being preserved by the USGS as a document associated with USGS Field Activity 1963-001-FA. The exact date of this unpublished report is unknown. Based on (a) the latest reference (Coachman L.K. and K. Aagaard, Physical Oceanography of Arctic and Subarctic Seas. In: Herman Y. (eds), Marine Geology and Oceanography of the Arctic Seas, pp. 1-72, Springer-Verlag, New York, 1974, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-87411-6_1) being 1974; (b) the report's providing data through the end of the T-3 heat flow experiment in 1973; (c) the report's inclusion of some post-expedition analysis, we infer that the report was completed in ~1974. The report contains handwritten notes from the original authors, and only some of these notes have been transcribed (typed) into the document. The report uses the metric system to report water depths, but uses some non-SI units to describe the measurements made by the USGS. For example, heat flow is reported in heat flow units (HFU), which were commonly used until the 1980s. Radiogenic heat is reported in non-SI mass units (microcalorie per gram per year), while volumetric SI units (which inherently include density) are used in the modern era. Note that there have been some stability problems with the PDF of the report. Specifically, some of the notes added to the report in 2019 revert to incorrect fonts or text is not present when the PDF is opened (particularly in figure captions). If this occurs, please bring the problem to the attention of the USGS contact for this dataset.

The original paper document was received by the USGS as a scan of a photocopied document from the scientific papers of Art Lachenbruch. Those papers are in the possession of Dr. B. Lachenbruch of Corvalis, Oregon. The scan was converted to PDF. When applicable, edits to the PDF were done using Adobe Acrobat DC Professional. In 2018 and 2019, C. Ruppel added typed necessary changes to the document, made some corrections, added printed figure captions, and transcribed, corrected and updated the handwritten reference list (and included DOI, where applicable). The handwritten figure numbers have been overwritten with typed numbers that correct the incorrect figure numbers starting in the “Ocean temperature” section. A note typed in red at the end of the main text documents the missing figures (70 and 71), which were referred to as 69 and 70 in the original document. Both Dr. B. Lachenbruch’s and Dr. Lawver’s versions of the report are missing Figures 70 and 71 (referred to as Figures 69 and 70 in the original version). The references were transcribed in 2019. Titles were added to the tables in 2019. The data in Tables 1 and 2 are being released in digital, quality-controlled format as part of the sciencebase.gov release associated with this study. Figure captions were added to the 69 available figures, transcribing the handwritten captions and adding information as necessary. For example, in some cases a geographic name used in the original report is no longer used in 2019. Incorrect figure numbers are so noted. Figure 9 is a map with different regions labelled by letter in the original. These letters are referred to in Table 3 and also in Figures 43 through 57. To increase the usability of Figure 9, the letter labels were typed in red where they could be read in the original report. Where the letters are not legible, this has been so noted. An interim report written by A.H. Lachenbruch and B.V. Marshall in 1971 is included as an appendix to the main report. The interim report was provided by Dr. B. Lachenbruch following a search through A. Lachenbruch’s scientific papers.

Added keywords section with USGS persistent identifier as theme keyword.