Minimal offshore extent of ice-bearing (subsea) permafrost on the U.S. Beaufort Sea margin

The present-day distribution of subsea permafrost beneath high-latitude continental shelves has implications for sea level rise and climate change since the Last Glacial Maximum (~20,000 years ago). Because permafrost can be spatially associated with gas hydrate (which may be thermodynamically stable within the several hundred meters above and below the base of permafrost), the contemporary distribution of subsea permafrost also has implications for the persistence of permafrost-associated gas hydrate beneath shallow waters at high latitudes, particularly on margins that were not glaciated at the Last Glacial Maximum. On the U.S. Beaufort Sea margin offshore northern Alaska, researchers have sometimes assumed that contemporary subsea [...]